This research (purchase required) presents a nanozyme-based colorimetric sensor array for effective coffee variety discrimination by analyzing characteristic components. Nanozymes are nano-scale molecules (for example, some metal oxides) that can catalyse biological reactions in an analogous way to enzymes.
The authors report the development of an optimized sensor array containing 13 nanozymes. No details of the reference samples or Machine Learning training are reported in the public abstract. They report that their sensor enabled the discrimination of coffee key compounds (no details given in the abstract) within the concentration range of 0.8 μmol/L to 100 μmol/L. The sensing mechanism involves coffee components modulating nanozyme peroxidase-like activity through electron transfer and hydrophobic interactions.
They report that this technology successfully distinguished two main coffee categories and their subtypes with high accuracy.
They also report the development of a mobile phone app based on their sensor. It achieved identification of coffee varieties and the detection of semi-quantitative adulteration levels. The conclude that this portable platform demonstrates significant potential for commercial coffee quality monitoring, providing a reliable tool for authenticity verification in the coffee industry.
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