Identification and Quantification of Industrial Grade Glycerol Adulteration in Red Wine with Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy Using Chemometrics and Artificial Neural Networks

Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) single bounce micro-attenuated total reflectance (mATR) spectroscopy, combined with multivariate and artificial neural network (ANN) data analysis, was used to determine the adulteration of industrial grade glycerol in selected red wines. Red wine samples were artificially adulterated with industrial grade glycerol over the concentration range from 0.1 to 15% and calibration models were developed and validated. Single bounce infrared spectra of glycerol adulterated wine samples were recorded in the fingerprint mid-infrared region, 900–1500 cm−1. Partial least squares (PLS) and PLS first derivatives were used for quantitative analysis (r2 = 0.945 to 0.998), while linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and canonical variate analysis (CVA) were used for classification and discrimination. The standard error of prediction (SEP) in the validation set was between 1.44 and 2.25%. Classification of glycerol adulterants in the different brands of red wine using CVA resulted in a classification accuracy in the range between 94 and 98%. Artificial neural network analysis based on the quick back propagation network (BPN) and the radial basis function network (RBFN) algorithms had classification success rates of 93% using BPN and 100% using RBFN. The genetic algorithm network was able to predict the concentrations of glycerol in wine up to an accuracy of r2 = 0.998.