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Chemometric and Spectroscopic Methods in Food Analysis

A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Analytical Chemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 March 2023) | Viewed by 14922

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

New and challenging issues have emerged in both the food industry and food value chains as they have become globally interconnected. Several issues that are gaining attention from the industry, government, and standard setting organizations are those related to the development of tools that can not only measure the composition of food promptly and efficiently but also monitor and guarantee the safety and origin of foods (e.g., authenticity, fraud, provenance, traceability). Data analytics and multivariate data analysis (chemometrics) combined with a wide range of spectroscopic techniques (e.g., NIR, MIR, Raman, hyperspectral) have been applied and evaluated to increase the effectiveness of rapid and non-destructive analytical techniques utilized by the food industry. Adapting and applying these techniques to monitor food composition, authenticity, etc. efficiently and consistently requires a good understanding not only of the food characteristics (e.g., chemical, biochemical, functional properties), but also of the principles of chemometrics and spectroscopy.

The aim of this Special Issue on “Chemometric and Spectroscopic Methods in Food Analysis” is to bring together experts in the topic of chemometrics and spectroscopy applied to food analysis, as well as to provide an overview of the state of the art in techniques and methods that are currently available (e.g., portable, handheld instrumentation, new algorithms) in the field of food analysis.

Dr. Daniel Cozzolino
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • chemometrics
  • fingerprinting
  • rapid methods
  • NIR
  • infrared
  • hyperspectral
  • Raman
  • MIR

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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11 pages, 2241 KiB  
Article
Green Chemometric-Assisted Characterization of Common and Black Varieties of Celery
by Alessandra Biancolillo, Martina Foschi, Leila D’Alonzo, Valter Di Cecco, Marco Di Santo, Luciano Di Martino and Angelo Antonio D’Archivio
Molecules 2023, 28(3), 1181; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules28031181 - 25 Jan 2023
Viewed by 1461
Abstract
Celery (Apium graveolens L., var. Dulce), is a biennial herbaceous plant belonging to the Apiaceae family, cultivated in humid soils in the Mediterranean basin, in Central-Southern Europe, and in Asia. Despite its wide diffusion and although it is well-known that cultivar/origin strongly [...] Read more.
Celery (Apium graveolens L., var. Dulce), is a biennial herbaceous plant belonging to the Apiaceae family, cultivated in humid soils in the Mediterranean basin, in Central-Southern Europe, and in Asia. Despite its wide diffusion and although it is well-known that cultivar/origin strongly influences plant composition, only a few studies have been carried out on the different types of celery. The present work aims to investigate four different Italian types of celery (two common, Elne and Magnum celery, and two black, Torricella Peligna Black and Trevi Black celery), and to test, whether the combination of FT-IR spectroscopy and chemometrics allows their ecotype discrimination. The peculiarity of this study lies in the fact that all the analyzed celeries were grown in the same experimental field under the same soil and climate conditions. Consequently, the differences captured by the FT-IR-based tool are mainly imputable to the different ecotypes. In order to achieve this goal, FT-IR profiles were handled by two diverse classifiers: sequential preprocessing through ORThogonalization (SPORT) and soft independent modeling by class analogy (SIMCA). Eventually, the highest classification rate (90%, on an external set of 100 samples) has been achieved by SPORT. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Chemometric and Spectroscopic Methods in Food Analysis)
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15 pages, 3384 KiB  
Article
The Rapid Non-Destructive Detection of Adulteration and Its Degree of Tieguanyin by Fluorescence Hyperspectral Technology
by Yan Hu and Zhiliang Kang
Molecules 2022, 27(4), 1196; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules27041196 - 10 Feb 2022
Cited by 16 | Viewed by 2312
Abstract
Tieguanyin is one of the top ten most popular teas and the representative of oolong tea in China. In this study, a rapid and non-destructive method is developed to detect adulterated tea and its degree. Benshan is used as the adulterated tea, which [...] Read more.
Tieguanyin is one of the top ten most popular teas and the representative of oolong tea in China. In this study, a rapid and non-destructive method is developed to detect adulterated tea and its degree. Benshan is used as the adulterated tea, which is about 0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, and 50% of the total weight of tea samples, mixed with Tieguanyin. Taking the fluorescence spectra from 475 to 1000 nm, we then established the 2-and 6-class discriminant models. The 2-class discriminant models had the best evaluation index when using SG-CARS-SVM, which can reach a 100.00% overall accuracy, 100.00% specificity, 100% sensitivity, and the least time was 1.2088 s, which can accurately identify pure and adulterated tea; among the 6-class discriminant models (0% (pure Tieguanyin), 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50%), with the increasing difficulty of adulteration, SNV-RF-SVM had the best evaluation index, the highest overall accuracy reached 94.27%, and the least time was 0.00698 s. In general, the results indicated that the two classification methods explored in this study can obtain the best effects. The fluorescence hyperspectral technology has a broad scope and feasibility in the non-destructive detection of adulterated tea and other fields. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Chemometric and Spectroscopic Methods in Food Analysis)
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Review

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24 pages, 2711 KiB  
Review
Toward the Non-Targeted Detection of Adulterated Virgin Olive Oil with Edible Oils via FTIR Spectroscopy & Chemometrics: Research Methodology Trends, Gaps and Future Perspectives
by Stella A. Ordoudi, Lorenzo Strani and Marina Cocchi
Molecules 2023, 28(1), 337; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules28010337 - 1 Jan 2023
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 3680
Abstract
Fourier-Transform mid-infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy offers a strong candidate screening tool for rapid, non-destructive and early detection of unauthorized virgin olive oil blends with other edible oils. Potential applications to the official anti-fraud control are supported by dozens of research articles with a “proof-of-concept” [...] Read more.
Fourier-Transform mid-infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy offers a strong candidate screening tool for rapid, non-destructive and early detection of unauthorized virgin olive oil blends with other edible oils. Potential applications to the official anti-fraud control are supported by dozens of research articles with a “proof-of-concept” study approach through different chemometric workflows for comprehensive spectral analysis. It may also assist non-targeted authenticity testing, an emerging goal for modern food fraud inspection systems. Hence, FTIR-based methods need to be standardized and validated to be accepted by the olive industry and official regulators. Thus far, several literature reviews evaluated the competence of FTIR standalone or compared with other vibrational techniques only in view of the chemometric methodology, regardless of the inherent characteristics of the product spectra or the application scope. Regarding authenticity testing, every step of the methodology workflow, and not only the post-acquisition steps, need thorough validation. In this context, the present review investigates the progress in the research methodology on FTIR-based detection of virgin olive oil adulteration over a period of more than 25 years with the aim to capture the trends, identify gaps or misuses in the existing literature and highlight intriguing topics for future studies. An extensive search in Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar, combined with bibliometric analysis, helped to extract qualitative and quantitative information from publication sources. Our findings verified that intercomparison of literature results is often impossible; sampling design, FTIR spectral acquisition and performance evaluation are critical methodological issues that need more specific guidance and criteria for application to product authenticity testing. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Chemometric and Spectroscopic Methods in Food Analysis)
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22 pages, 1117 KiB  
Review
Contemporary Developments and Emerging Trends in the Application of Spectroscopy Techniques: A Particular Reference to Coconut (Cocos nucifera L.)
by Ravi Pandiselvam, Rathnakumar Kaavya, Sergio I. Martinez Monteagudo, V. Divya, Surangna Jain, Anandu Chandra Khanashyam, Anjineyulu Kothakota, V. Arun Prasath, S. V. Ramesh, N. U. Sruthi, Manoj Kumar, M. R. Manikantan, Chinnaraja Ashok Kumar, Amin Mousavi Khaneghah and Daniel Cozzolino
Molecules 2022, 27(10), 3250; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules27103250 - 19 May 2022
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 6536
Abstract
The number of food frauds in coconut-based products is increasing due to higher consumer demands for these products. Rising health consciousness, public awareness and increased concerns about food safety and quality have made authorities and various other certifying agencies focus more on the [...] Read more.
The number of food frauds in coconut-based products is increasing due to higher consumer demands for these products. Rising health consciousness, public awareness and increased concerns about food safety and quality have made authorities and various other certifying agencies focus more on the authentication of coconut products. As the conventional techniques for determining the quality attributes of coconut are destructive and time-consuming, non-destructive testing methods which are accurate, rapid, and easy to perform with no detrimental sampling methods are currently gaining importance. Spectroscopic methods such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), infrared (IR)spectroscopy, mid-infrared (MIR)spectroscopy, near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy, ultraviolet-visible (UV-VIS) spectroscopy, fluorescence spectroscopy, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and Raman spectroscopy (RS) are gaining in importance for determining the oxidative stability of coconut oil, the adulteration of oils, and the detection of harmful additives, pathogens, and toxins in coconut products and are also employed in deducing the interactions in food constituents, and microbial contaminations. The objective of this review is to provide a comprehensive analysis on the various spectroscopic techniques along with different chemometric approaches for the successful authentication and quality determination of coconut products. The manuscript was prepared by analyzing and compiling the articles that were collected from various databases such as PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus and ScienceDirect. The spectroscopic techniques in combination with chemometrics were shown to be successful in the authentication of coconut products. RS and NMR spectroscopy techniques proved their utility and accuracy in assessing the changes in coconut oil’s chemical and viscosity profile. FTIR spectroscopy was successfully utilized to analyze the oxidation levels and determine the authenticity of coconut oils. An FT-NIR-based analysis of various coconut samples confirmed the acceptable levels of accuracy in prediction. These non-destructive methods of spectroscopy offer a broad spectrum of applications in food processing industries to detect adulterants. Moreover, the combined chemometrics and spectroscopy detection method is a versatile and accurate measurement for adulterant identification. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Chemometric and Spectroscopic Methods in Food Analysis)
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