A rapid tool for determination of titanium dioxide content in white chickpea samples

Abstract Titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) is a widely used additive in foods. However, in the scientific community there is an ongoing debate on health concerns about TiO 2 . The main goal of this study is to determine TiO 2 content by using laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS). To this end, different amounts of TiO 2 was added to white chickpeas and analyzed by using LIBS. Calibration curve was obtained by following Ti emissions at 390.11 nm for univariate calibration, and partial least square (PLS) calibration curve was obtained by evaluating the whole spectra. The results showed that Ti calibration curve at 390.11 nm provides successful determination of Ti level with 0.985 of R 2 and 33.9 ppm of limit of detection (LOD) value, while PLS has 0.989 of R 2 and 60.9 ppm of LOD. Furthermore, commercial white chickpea samples were used to validate the method, and validation R 2 for simple calibration and PLS were calculated as 0.989 and 0.951, respectively.