Abstract
Ionizing radiation processing is a widely employed method for preservative treatment of foodstuffs. Usually it is possible to detect irradiated herbs and spices by resorting to luminescence techniques, in particular photo- and thermostimulated luminescence. For these techniques to be useful, it is necessary to characterize the response to radiation of each particular herb or spice. In this work, the thermoluminescence (TL) and photostimulated luminescence (PSL) properties of inorganic polymineral fractions extracted from commercial herbs and spices previously irradiated for disinfestation purposes have been analyzed. Samples of mint, cinnamon, chamomile, paprika, black pepper, coriander and Jamaica flower were irradiated from 50 to 400. Gy by using a beta source. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis has shown that the mineral fractions consist mainly of quartz and feldspars. The PSL and TL response as a function of the absorbed dose, and their fading at room temperature have been determined. The TL glow curves have been deconvolved in order to obtain characteristic kinetics parameters in each case. The results of this work show that PSL and TL are reliable techniques for detection and analysis of irradiated foodstuffs.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1227-1231 |
| Number of pages | 5 |
| Journal | Radiation Physics and Chemistry |
| Volume | 81 |
| Issue number | 8 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Aug 2012 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:J. Marcazzó thanks to DGAPA-UNAM (Mexico) for supporting his postdoctoral position. We acknowledge the financial support from PAPIIT-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (grant number IN121109-3 ).
Keywords
- Herbs
- Irradiated food
- Photostimulated luminescence
- Polymineral
- Spices
- Thermoluminescence