AGRICULTURAL AND FOOD RESEARCH

In these last few years agricultural and food research line started and increased its activity thanks to the use of a complex instrument present in our research center: NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance). CO.T.IR. spectrometer is NMR-600 MHz Avance and owns both BBI and BBO probes, which allow to analyse liquid samples, and HR-MAS probe, which allows to analyse semi-solid samples (i.e. fruits, meat, fish, cheese, pasta).
NMR analysis carried out on agricultural and food samples are not invasive, but selective, because they are able to discriminate a great quantity of low molecular weight compounds in complex mixtures, in order to obtain information on the chemical composition, the molecular structure of the plant-origins and their extracts.
The samples to be analysed are immersed in an electromagnetic field and excited at their resonance frequency. In this way the nuclei go from a minor energy condition to a major energy condition. As they go back to their equilibrium condition, there is an inverse passage with energy release. NMR signal is obtained by manitoring this energy.
Seeing the great quantity of information contained in a food and agricultural matrix, we can obtain a very complex NMR spectrum, so the compounds identification process is also extremely difficult. In this case, this spectrum can be used as a bar code to identify that specific product in a context of chain traceability, for instance, or used to group together the samples according to particular compositions (this approach is called “profiling”). The samples collecting is made by multivariate analysis statistic techniques.

It is possible to use a NMR spectrum also to assign specific compounds in the sample. Though the substances identification process in the plant-matrix is very complex, it must be made just once for each of the analysed species and there is rarely the need of  identifying all the substances, but only those with a specific valence (nutritional, linked to the geographical orogin, etc.).
Our research lines start from the characterization of the samples geographical origin, to the animal origin characterization, to the assignment of natural matrix complex spectra, to the foods maturing processes monitoring, and much more.

At present, we obtained very satisfying results on a good number of foods, in particular:
- characterization of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo wine geografical origin;
- characterization of  Sulmona red garlic;
- Oxidation state evaluation of the products with an animal origin;
- animal origin characterization  of cow, sheep and goat cheeses;

- chemical profile of Abruzzo wines subjected to mix;
- characterization of faba bean and protein-pea;
- characterization of mixed cheeses animal origin;
- characterization of cheeses ripening and preservation processes, etc.