Discrimination between Wild and Farmed Sea Bass by Using New Spectrometry and Spectroscopy Methods

Detection of Illicit Conservation Treatments in Sea Bass (Dicentrarchus labrax): Application and Data Integration of NIR Spectrometers

Global fish and seafood consumption is increasing annually, frequently leading to the emergence of food fraud, mainly related to mislabeling and adulteration like, for example, the use of illicit/unauthorized food additives to mask or delay fish spoilage. Among the available diagnostic tools for control purposes, spectroscopic techniques have often been proposed to identify these kinds of illicit practices in fish and seafood products. The presented study aims to test two cheap and portable near infrared (NIR) spectrometers, a handheld MicroNIR and a pocket-sized SCiO, to uncover use of the illicit food additive Cafodos, a mixture of sodium citrate and hydrogen peroxide used to preserve some fish characteristics (like smell, color, na dtexture). The NIR spectroscopy in combination with chemometric approaches, allowed the successfully classification of (81-100%) samples of sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) treated with Cafodos. The study highlights the potential of this technique that, by not requiring pre-treatment of samples with further reagents, is cheaper and safer for the environment. In conclusion, the study confirmed the potential of portable devices for rapid NIR spectroscopy analysis to identify food fraud and ensure consumer safety.

Miniaturized Near-Infrared spectrophotometers in forensic analytical science - a critical review

The advent of miniaturized NIR instruments, also known as compact, portable, or handheld, is revolutionizing how technology can be employed in forensics. In-field analysis becomes feasible and affordable with these new instruments, and a series of methods has been developed to provide the police and official agents with objective, easy-to-use, tailored, and accurate qualitative and quantitative forensic results. This work discusses the main aspects and presents a comprehensive and critical review of compact NIR spectrophotometers associated with analytical protocols to produce information on forensic matters.

Multi-Omics Approaches for Freshness Estimation and Detection of Illicit Conservation Treatments in Sea Bass (Dicentrarchus Labrax): Data Fusion Applications

Fish freshness consists of complex endogenous and exogenous processes; therefore, the use of a few parameters to unravel illicit practices could be insufficient. Moreover, the development of strategies for the identification of such practices based on additives known to prevent and/or delay fish spoilage is still limited. The paper deals with the identification of the effect played by a Cafodos solution on the conservation state of sea bass at both short-term (3 h) and long-term (24 h). Controls and treated samples were characterized by a multi-omic approach involving proteomics, lipidomics, metabolomics, and metagenomics. Different parts of the fish samples were studied (muscle, skin, eye, and gills) and sampled through a non-invasive procedure based on EVA strips functionalized by ionic exchange resins. Data fusion methods were then applied to build models able to discriminate between controls and treated samples and identify the possible markers of the applied treatment. The approach was effective in the identification of the effect played by Cafodos that proved to be different in the short- and long-term and complex, involving proteins, lipids, and small molecules to a different extent.

Current State-of-the-Art Spectroscopic and Chromatographic Techniques Utilized in Food Authenticity and Food Traceability

Food products are heterogeneous and complex matrices characterized by various compounds and in variable proportions [...].

Portable NIR spectroscopy: the route to green analytical chemistry

There is a growing interest for cost-effective and nondestructive analytical techniques in both research and application fields. The growing approach by near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRs) pushes to develop handheld devices devoted to be easily applied for in situ determinations. Consequently, portable NIR spectrometers actually result definitively recognized as powerful instruments, able to perform nondestructive, online, or in situ analyses, and useful tools characterized by increasingly smaller size, lower cost, higher robustness, easy-to-use by operator, portable and with ergonomic profile. Chemometrics play a fundamental role to obtain useful and meaningful results from NIR spectra. In this review, portable NIRs applications, published in the period 2019-2022, have been selected to indicate starting references. These publications have been chosen among the many examples of the most recent applications to demonstrate the potential of this analytical approach which, not having the need for extraction processes or any other pre-treatment of the sample under examination, can be considered the "true green analytical chemistry" which allows the analysis where the sample to be characterized is located. In the case of industrial processes or plant or animal samples, it is even possible to follow the variation or evolution of fundamental parameters over time. Publications of specific applications in this field continuously appear in the literature, often in unfamiliar journal or in dedicated special issues. This review aims to give starting references, sometimes not easy to be found.