Detection of walnut oil adulterated with high-linoleic acid vegetable oils using triacylglycerol pseudotargeted method based on SFC-QTOF-MS.

• A triacylglycerol (TAGs) pseudotargeted method based on SFC-QTOF-MS was established. • 59 TAGs in high-linoleic acid vegetable oils (HLOs) were determined within 10 min. • Representative and traceable walnut oil samples were used for modeling. • OPLS-DA and OPLS models provide accurate qualitative and quantitative prediction at adulteration levels as low as 5%. • Minor TAGs play a key diagnostic role to detect foreign HLOs in walnut oil. Authentication of walnut oil (WO) is challenging due to the adulteration of high-linoleic acid vegetable oils (HLOs) with similar fatty acid composition. To allow the discrimination of WO adulteration, a rapid, sensitive and stable scanning method based on supercritical fluid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (SFC-QTOF-MS) was established to profile 59 potential triacylglycerol (TAGs) in HLOs samples within 10 min. Limit of quantitation of the proposed method is 0.002 µg mL−1 and the relative standard deviations range from 0.7% to 12.0%. TAGs profiles of WO samples from various varieties, geography origins, ripeness, and processing methods were used to construct orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) and OPLS models that were highly accurate in both qualitative and quantitative prediction at adulteration levels as low as 5% (w/w). This study advances the TAGs analysis to characterize vegetable oils and holds promise as an efficient method for oil authentication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]