Application of near infrared spectroscopy to detection chickpea flour adulteration

The increasing development and manufacturing of portable optical spectroscopy equipment indicates that techniques based on optical properties are highly effective. For this reason, the use of optical spectroscopy equipment in the rapid test detection of food fraud is still favored by food industry activists. In the present study, modeling of near-infrared spectra in the 950- 1650 nm region was investigated by principal components analysis to discriminate chickpea flour samples from wheat/split pea flours mixed samples on 5, 10, 20, and 30 mixing (weight) percentages. The scatter plots of the spectra in the coordinates of the principal components showed that the mentioned method has been successful in discriminating pure chickpea flour from mixed with split pea/wheat flour. Applying standard normal distribution preprocessing to the spectral data improved the discrimination between the spectra acquiring from different wheat/split pea flour mixing percentages. Most of the differentiating spectral signs were observed in the spectral regions of 1600 -1480 and 1000 - 1330 nm. Therefore, the mentioned bands were considered important in terms of determining the indices of wheat or split pea flour in chickpea flour based on the difference in the percentage of light reflection. The results indicated that it is possible to use the fast and non-destructive method of near-infrared spectroscopy along with the principal components analysis technique in discriminating pure chickpea flour with wheat/split pea flour mixed as an alternative to laboratory methods.