Detection of adulteration in Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter flour using EDXRF and ComDim-MLR data fusion

Patricia Casarin; Luana Dalagrana Dos Santos; Franciele Leila Giopato Viell; Fábio Luiz Melquiades; Evandro Bona

doi:10.1016/j.aca.2023.341639

Detection of adulteration in Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter flour using EDXRF and ComDim-MLR data fusion

Anal Chim Acta. 2023 Oct 2:1276:341639. doi: 10.1016/j.aca.2023.341639. Epub 2023 Jul 20.

Authors

Patricia Casarin¹, Luana Dalagrana Dos Santos², Franciele Leila Giopato Viell³, Fábio Luiz Melquiades⁴, Evandro Bona⁵

Affiliations

¹ Post-Graduation Program of Food Technology (PPGTA), Federal University of Technology Paraná (UTFPR) - Paraná - Brazil. Electronic address: limap@alunos.utfpr.edu.br.
² Post-Graduation Program of Food Technology (PPGTA), Federal University of Technology Paraná (UTFPR) - Paraná - Brazil. Electronic address: luanadalagrana@gmail.com.
³ Post-Graduation Program of Food Technology (PPGTA), Federal University of Technology Paraná (UTFPR) - Paraná - Brazil. Electronic address: fran_viell@hotmail.com.
⁴ Applied Nuclear Physics Laboratory, State University of Londrina (UEL) - Paraná - Brazil. Electronic address: fmelquiades@uel.br.
⁵ Post-Graduation Program of Food Technology (PPGTA), Federal University of Technology Paraná (UTFPR) - Paraná - Brazil; Post-Graduation Program of Chemistry (PPGQ), Federal University of Technology Paraná (UTFPR) - Paraná - Brazil. Electronic address: ebona@utfpr.edu.br.

PMID: 37573100
DOI: 10.1016/j.aca.2023.341639

Abstract

The teff cereal gained worldwide attention because it is gluten-free and rich in iron; thus, its flour is subject to fraud. This study evaluated the ability of Energy Dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy (EDXRF) to identify teff flours adulterated with rice, whole wheat, oat, and rye flours. The adulteration followed a {5,4} simplex-lattice design. After smoothing and pretreatments, 15 kV and 50 kV spectra were fused by Common Dimension Analysis (ComDim). Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) models using EDXRF-ComDim scores and percentage of teff were adjusted. The best model presented four common dimensions (CD), r²_prediction = 0.8534, low RMSEP (0.0564), and absence of overfitting. The obtained model was robust to quantify adulteration in teff flour even with the differences in the intensity of EDXRF spectra of different crops. Therefore, EDXRF, in tandem with ComDim data fusion, was an efficient tool for the adulteration control of teff flours.

Keywords: Food fraud; Gluten-free cereals; Mineral profile; Multiblock analysis; Multiple linear regression.