Coffee arabica adulteration: Detection of wheat, corn and chickpea

Abstract

Coffee is globally one of the most widely consumed beverages. Due to the high economic importance for the countries that produce, export and import it, its purity and detection of external impurities have been constant concern. In some cases, visual inspection is unreliable in roasted ground coffee because of resemblance in color and the texture of the cheapest fillers. The objective of this work was to evaluate the feasibility of employing Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) for determination of coffee adulteration with chickpea, corn and wheat. For this purpose, LIBS spectra was evaluated with chemometrics methods for classification and quantification of the adulteration ratio. Coefficient of determination and limit of detection values for chickpea, corn and wheat adulteration with Coffee arabica were found as 0.996, 0.995, 0.995 and 0.56%, 0.52% and 0.45%, respectively. With LIBS, prevention of unfair competition, protection of consumers and determination of coffee quality can be achieved. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd