Sensors 2017, 17(4), 839; doi:10.3390/s17040839
Fructose and Pectin Detection in Fruit-Based Food Products by Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy
1
CNR-SPIN, Istituto Superconduttori, Materiali Innovativi e Dispositivi, 80078 Pozzuoli (Na), Italy
2
Dipartimento di Medicina Sperimentale, Università della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, 80138 Naples, Italy
3
Institute of Genetics and Biophysics—ABT, CNR, 80131 Naples, Italy
4
Dipartimento di Scienze Ecologiche e Biologiche, Università della Tuscia, 01100 Viterbo, Italy
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Received: 9 March 2017 / Revised: 7 April 2017 / Accepted: 8 April 2017 / Published: 11 April 2017
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Selected Papers from the 3rd International Electronic Conference on Sensors and Applications)
Abstract
Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) enables the investigation of samples with weak specific Raman signals, such as opaque samples, including fruit juices and pulp. In this paper, biological apple juices and apple/pear pulp have been studied in order to evidence the presence of fructose and pectin, which are components of great relevance for quality assessment of these kinds of products. In order to perform SERS measurements a low-cost home-made substrate consisting of a glass slide decorated with 30-nm-sized gold nanoparticles has been designed and used. By employing a conventional micro-Raman spectroscopy set-up and a suitable data treatment based on “wavelet” denoising algorithms and background subtraction, spectra of pectin and fructose with clear Raman features have been obtained. The results have confirmed the potential of SERS in the food industry for product characterization, also considering the low-cost and the relative ease of the fabrication process of the employed SERS substrate. View Full-TextKeywords:
surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS); gold nanoparticles (GNPs); commercial fruit juice and fruit-based preparations; pectin; fructose
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Camerlingo, C.; Portaccio, M.; Tatè, R.; Lepore, M.; Delfino, I. Fructose and Pectin Detection in Fruit-Based Food Products by Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy. Sensors 2017, 17, 839.
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