Electrochemical approach to the study of the antioxidant capacity of vaccinium meridionale swart at different ripening stages

Abstract

The study of tropical fruits’ nutraceutical properties has been of great interest in the food research area. There are several parameters traditionally used to make fruits quality control, such as organoleptic analysis and physical and chemical assays. This work proposes the use of a simple, fast and low cost electrochemical technique for the characterization of fruit extracts in function of their ripening state, using as biological model a tropical fruit commonly named as Mortiño (Vaccinium meridionale swart). Cyclic voltammetry was selected as an electrochemical technique, due to the possibility of extracting kinetic and thermodynamic information from the results. A good correlation between the fruit extract’s physical-chemical properties and electrochemical parameters, such as peak intensity, charge and oxidation peak potential, was obtained.