Almond flour is a high value product susceptible to adulteration. Brazilian researchers have developed methods for the determination of almond flour adulteration, using near infrared spectroscopy (NIR). Three different portable NIR instruments were evaluated to verify the authenticity of almond flours, and the results were compared with a benchtop FT-NIR (Fourier Transform Near Infrared) spectrometer. Fifty-four almond flours of different varieties were adulterated with low-cost flours widely consumed in Brazil. Different one class chemometric models were used to analyse the spectra. The classification results achieved 100% sensitivity and more than 95% specificity for samples with adulterant concentration of 5% (w/w) or above. Further analysis by PLSR (partial least squares regression) models was employed to quantify almond flour purity content.
Read the abstract here
