Targeted Analyses of Secondary Metabolites in Herbs, Spices, and Beverages Using a Novel Spectro-Electro Array Platform

Thermo Fisher Scientific has developed a multianalyte-targeted technique that uses a spectro-electro array platform to resolve and quantify phenols, phenolic acids, and polyphenols in a variety of natural products, supplements, herbs, spices, and beverages.

Application Note 1063: Targeted Analyses of Secondary Metabolites in Herbs, Spices, and Beverages Using a Novel Spectro-Electro Array Platform demonstrates that this approach extends the range of compounds that can be simultaneously detected and enables the separation and quantitation of 49 different phytochemicals commonly found in a number of herbs, spices, and beverages.

There is considerable interest in the potential health benefits/medicinal value of phenolic and polyphenolic compounds present in a number of botanical supplements, foods, and beverages. However, the structural diversity of many of these compounds makes them difficult to identify and quantify in complex matrices. In this new approach, an electrochemical detector uses unique three-dimensional voltammetric resolution to enable compound separation superior to that of traditional spectrometric techniques. This method can also measure the antioxidant capacity of a sample, as well as the contribution of individual groups of antioxidants to that total capacity.