Almonds show a great variability in their chemical composition. This variability is a result of the existence of a diverse range of almond cultivars, the self-incompatibility of most almond cultivars, and the heterogeneous harvesting conditions found around the different locations where almons are grown. In the last years, the discrimination among almond cultivars has been the focal point of some research studies to avoid fraud in protected geographical indications in almond products and also for selecting the best cultivars for a specific food application or the most interesting ones from a nutritional point of view. In this work, a revision of the recent research works related to the chemical characterization and classification of almond cultivars from different geographical origins has been carried out. The content of macronutrients, tocopherols, phytosterols, polyphenols, minerals, amino acids, and volatile compounds together with DNA fingerprint have been reported as possible cultivar and origin markers. The analysis of the results showed that no individual almond compound could be considered a universal biomarker to find differences among different almond cultivars. Hence, an adequate selection of variables or the employment of metabolomics and the application of multivariate statistical techniques is necessary when classification studies are carried out to obtain valuable results. Meanwhile, DNA fingerprinting is the perfect tool for compared cultivars based on their genetic origin.

The presence of nuts in diets has notably increased due to their composition, and the presence of antioxidants and their unsaturated fatty acid profile has led to a considerable increase in their consumption. The volatile profile of nuts is important from different points of view. It affects consumer’s selection, influences raw material selection for the production of composite foods, dictates variety selection in breeding programs, and, from a quality perspective, its changes can indicate food degradation or alteration. A review of the published bibliography concerning the determination of volatiles in nuts has been carried out. The information retrieved has been divided into four main sections. First, a discussion on the main volatiles present in nuts is performed; next, a revision of the methods used to determine the volatiles is presented; and, finally, two sections describing how harvesting conditions, healthy state and the thermal treatment of nuts modifies their volatile profile are added. Analysis of the published bibliography denoted the complexity of volatile determination and the different variables that can modify the compounds present in the volatile fraction of nuts.

Four different spray chambers were compared for the elemental analysis of liquid samples by ICP-AES: a double-pass Scott-type spray chamber made from Ryton and three cyclonic spray chambers manufactured from various materials [i.e., glass, poly(propylene), PP, and poly(tetrafluoroethylene), PTFE]. A glass concentric pneumatic nebulizer was used in conjunction with all four chambers. The parameters evaluated were: the characteristics of the aerosols at the exit of each chamber (i.e., tertiary aerosols); the solvent (S _tot ) and analyte (W _tot ) transported through each chamber; and the ICP-AES analytical parameters (i.e., net emission intensities, limits of detection, LOD, and background equivalent concentrations, BEC). The interference produced by the presence of a widely used matrix (i.e., acids) was also evaluated for the four chambers. The results indicated that the cyclonic glass and PP spray chambers gave rise to coarser tertiary aerosols, higher solution transport rates, higher emission signals and lower LOD and BEC values than the other two spray chambers. For the cyclonic spray chambers, the position of the nebulizer proved to be of critical importance. With regard to the acid effects, these were more pronounced as the tertiary aerosols became finer. Hence, for the Scott-type spray chamber, the signal reduction induced by the presence of acids was enhanced compared with the cyclonic spray chambers.