Prediction of Azodicarbonamide in Flour Using Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Technique

Abstracts

Azodicarbonamide is wildly used as a flour gluten fortifier in many countries, but according to the research results of toxicology of azodicarbonamide, its acute toxicity is slightly toxic. A dosage of 10 g/kg is lethal to mice, and it was proved by some researches to be dangerous or unhealthy for people and not suitable to be added in flour; hence, there is a need to identify the concentration of azodicarbonamide in flour quickly. Compared to traditional methods like high-performance liquid chromatography, the core advantage of near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy is rapid and economical. Spectral data in a range of 850 to 1050 nm were obtained by scanning 101 samples with different concentrations. The Mahalanobis distance method was used to distinguish abnormal spectral data, and the correlation coefficient method was used to choose characteristic wave bands. Radial basis function in combination with near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy was used to establish models in accordance. The limit of quantitation and the limit of detection of the first model were 72 and 15 mg/kg, respectively. Through analyzing the relative tolerances of predictive values and true values, the method of secondary modeling was proposed for low-concentration (72 mg/kg) samples. The predictions showed that near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy could be used for detecting the content of azodicarbonamide added to flour.