Detection of vinegar adulteration with spirit vinegar and acetic acid using UV-visible and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy

Vinegar is one of the commonly adulterated food products, and variations in product and adulterant spectrum make the detection of adulteration a challenging task. This study aims to determine adulteration of grape vinegars with spirit vinegar and synthetic acetic acid using different spectroscopic methods. For this purpose, grape vinegars were mixed separately with spirit vinegar and diluted synthetic acetic acid (4%) at 1-50% (v/v) ratios. Spectra of vinegars and mixtures were obtained with UV-visible and Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometers. Data were evaluated with various chemometric methods and artificial neural networks (ANN). Correct classification rates of at least 94.3% and higher values were obtained by the evaluation of both spectroscopic data along with their combination with chemometric methods and ANN for discrimination of non-adulterated and adulterated vinegars. UV-vis and FTIR spectroscopy can be rapid and accurate ways of detecting adulteration in vinegars regardless of adulterant type.

Automated summary

This study successfully identified the adulteration of vinegars with spirit vinegar and synthetic acetic acid using UV-visible and FTIR spectroscopic methods combined with chemometric methods and ANN. The correct classification rate reached at least 94.3%, indicating that both UV-visible and FTIR spectroscopy can be rapid and accurate ways to detect adulteration in vinegars regardless of the type of adulterant.