Spectroscopic Analysis of Bioactive Components and Chemical Constituents from Edible Plants

Dear Colleagues,

Recent years have seen increasing interest in “functional foods”, which contain high levels of biologically active compounds with demonstrated health benefits. These may include foods with high levels of vitamins, beneficial fatty acids, anthocyanins or phenolic compounds, amongst others. These provide food products with health benefits beyond that which would be expected from their basic nutritional properties.

Traditional analytical techniques for analysing specific compounds in food products suffer from several drawbacks, including their high cost, extended sample preparation requirements, production of solvent wastes, lengthy analysis times, and requirements of highly trained operators. Consequently, they are not suited to the rapid, real-time screening of bioactive compounds in food products. This is where spectroscopic techniques, such as infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy or fluorescence spectroscopy, may be useful. These techniques use the chemical information contained in light wavelengths to probe the composition of the sample, allowing for real-time, non-destructive and non-invasive analysis.

This Special Issue aims to bring together research which uses spectroscopic (light-based) techniques for the analysis of specific chemical constituents in food crops, particularly with respect to bioactive compounds. We are happy to consider original research articles as well as well-constructed review articles.

Thank you for your interest.

Prof. Dr. Kerry Brian Walsh
Dr. Mani Naiker
Dr. Kashif Ameer
Guest Editors

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