Spectroscopy as a rapid detecting paprika powder adulteration

Abstract

Paprika powder, a spice known for imparting flavour, colour and aroma in foods has recently become compromised by fraudulent activities involving diverse adulterants such as corn flour and has prompted quality assurance (QA) measures. Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a non-destructive method gaining grounds in QA applications. The study applied NIRS to detect paprika powder adulterated with corn flour. Chemometric evaluation spectra showed that NIRS could discriminate cornflour adulteration with 100% classification accuracy. Adulteration was also predicted with high accuracies coefficient of determination (R2CV) between 0.97 and 0.99 and low errors (0.72 g/100g), proving the future QA applications of NIRS.