Multi-elemental Analysis of Flour Types and Breads by Using Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy

Bread and flour are most commonly used products in human diet, which makes it susceptible to adulteration, mislabeling and addition of unpermitted amount of different flour types. The objective of this work was to evaluate the potential of employing laser induced breakdown spectroscopy to differentiate different flour types and quantify the white wheat flour addition to rye and oat flour and breads. In the principal component analysis, score plot represents pure flour types with 97.64% of the variance. In the calibration study, the measured coefficient of determination values was 0.989, 0.989, 0.992 and 0.991 for refined wheat flour: rye flour, refined wheat flour: oat flour, breads made with the blend of refined wheat: rye flour and the blend of refined wheat: oat flour, respectively. The limit of detection values were calculated as 3.82, 5.97, 4.59 and 4.92% for refined wheat flour: rye flour, refined wheat flour: oat flour, refined wheat: rye bread and refined wheat: oat bread, respectively.