An electroanalytical method for brewing vinegar authentic identification

An electrochemical fingerprint-based methodology is described here for vinegar authentic identification. The commercial three-electrode system can be directly inserted into vinegar for voltammetric profile recording without the addition of electrolyte. The free amino acids and aroma compounds produced from the fermentation process can be oxidized during the differential pulse voltammetric scan. The fingerprint pattern of vinegar varies between the different brand due to the different raw ingredients and fermentation process. The DPV profiles can be converted into 2D scatter patterns for identifying twelve different vinegar in this work. In addition, clustering analysis confirmed the feasibility of the proposed method for vinegar authentic identification. We believe the proposed methodology can be further extended for other food quality screening application.

Keywords: electrochemistry; vinegar; glassy carbon electrode; cluster analysis; food safety.