Rapid pretreatment-free evaluation of antioxidant capacity in extra virgin olive oil using a laser-nanodecorated electrochemical lab-on-strip

An electroanalytical lab-on-a-strip device for the direct extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) antioxidant capacity evaluation is proposed. The lab-made device is composed of a CO₂ laser nanodecorated sensor combined with a cutter-plotter molded paper-strip designed for EVOOs sampling and extraction. Satisfactory performance towards the most representative o-diphenols of EVOOs i.e., hydroxytyrosol (HY) and oleuropein (OL) were achieved; good sensitivity (LOD_HY = 2 µM; LOD_OL = 0.6 µM), extended linear ranges (HY: 10-250 µM; OL: 2.5-50 µM) and outstanding reproducibility (RSD < 5%, n = 3) were obtained in rectified oil. The device was challenged for the extraction-free analysis of 15 different EVOO samples, with satisfactory recoveries (90-94%; RSD < 5%, n = 3) and correlation with classical photometric assays (r ≥ 0.91). The proposed device includes all analysis steps, needs 4 µL of sample, and returns reliable results in 2 min, resulting portable and usable with a smartphone.