Rapid discrimination of authenticity in wheat flour and pasta samples using LIBS

Abstract

In this study the possibility of using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) to discriminate durum and common wheat samples both in flour and pasta and determine the adulteration ratio was explored. For this purpose, 120 common and 119 durum wheat samples including different genotypes were collected from various regions of Anatolia. LIBS spectra were evaluated with partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) and PLS to identify the wheat type and adulteration ratios. In PLS-DA study, sensitivity and specificity of calibration and cross-validation were found as 1.000 and 0.990. The coefficients of determination and limits of detection for durum flour adulteration were found to be 0.999 and 0.52%, respectively. The study demonstrated that LIBS is a promising tool and has potential to become a rapid, reliable, environmental friendly and nondestructive analytical technique for identification and detection of wheat flour adulteration in pasta.