Rapid and Accurate Antioxidant Measurements in Foods

The PHOTOCHEM analyzer from Analytik Jena UK provides a rapid and accurate way of measuring water-soluble and lipid-soluble antioxidants in a single system. Measuring antioxidant levels plays an important role in a host of applications including characterization of food quality; control of food processing technologies; improvement of product shelf life; measurement of the antioxidative efficiency of food additives; authenticity control and development of novel formulae. Antioxidants are an essential part of the body’s defense mechanism against cell damage by free radicals.

PHOTOCHEM uses the principle of photochemiluminescence, combining very fast photochemical radical generation with highly sensitive luminometric detection. This technique has considerable benefits over the conventional ELISA measurement method, since ELISA methods generate “synthetic” free radicals, whose reaction with antioxidants can be significantly different from “real” free radicals.

The high-sensitivity PHOTOCHEM is extremely easy to use with sample measurement times of less than 3 minutes. There is no complex or time-consuming sample preparation and only a few microliters of sample are needed. Sampling, measurement and rinse cycles are performed automatically. The anti-oxidative capacity of the sample is measured by comparison with a calibration curve.

Typical applications for PHOTOCHEM include: water-soluble antioxidative capacity of lyophilised vegetables, fruit juice and beer; water- and lipid-soluble antioxidative capacity in bakers yeast, cheese, tea & coffee and lipid-soluble antioxidative capacity in edible oil and salami extracts.