Abstract
Investigations were initiated to develop terahertz (THz) techniques associated with machine learning methods of generalized regression neural network (GRNN) and back-propagation neural network (BPNN) to rapidly measure benzoic acid (BA) content in wheat flour. The absorption coefficient exhibited a maximum absorption peak at 1.94 THz, which generally increased with the content of BA additive. THz spectra were transformed into orthogonal principal component analysis (PCA) scores as the input vectors of GRNN and BPNN models. The best GRNN model was achieved with three PCA scores and spread value of 0.2. Compared with the BPNN model, GRNN model to powder samples could be considered very successful for quality control of wheat flour with a correlation coefficient of prediction (rp) of 0.85 and root mean square error of prediction of 0.10%. The results suggest that THz technique association with GRNN has a significant potential to quantitatively analyse BA additive in wheat flour.
Highlights
Benzoic acid (BA), a food additive, is widely used to preserve different kinds of foods
The 160 samples were divided into training and validation datasets according to an approximate scale of 3 : 1. The backpropagation neural network (BPNN) or generalized regression neural network (GRNN) model is initially fit on the training dataset to fit the parameters e.g. weights of connections between neurons
The overall results sufficiently demonstrate that BA concentration values in wheat flour could be determined by THz spectroscopy associated with machine learning method of GRNN
Summary
Benzoic acid (BA), a food additive, is widely used to preserve different kinds of foods. The United States Food and Drug Administration, considers BA approved for use as food additives safe for humans when consumed in small amounts. The long-term consumption of wheat flour containing BA royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rsos R. Additive may cause the accumulation of BA in the liver, resulting in cumulative poisoning. In recent 2 years, debate on the addition of BA to wheat flour has increased in China. It is necessary to develop a suitable and rapid method for product supervision and sampling inspection to determine BA in wheat flour
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