Banana Flour Adulteration Key Marker Unravelled by Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry Assisted by Chemometric Tools

Green banana flour has been gaining prominence as a functional food due to its high nutritional value and health benefits. However, its increasing commercialization has also raised concerns about adulteration, which can compromise both product quality and consumer confidence. In this study, we propose a simple method to detect adulteration in banana flour using ICP-OES combined with chemometric tools. A total of 73 samples, including authentic and adulterated flours, were analyzed for their mineral composition (B, Ca, Cu, Fe, Mn, P, K, Mg, and Na). The limit of detection was determined for all analytes, being 0.005 µg g−1 (Ca), 0.007 µg g−1 (K), 0.02 µg g−1 (Mg), 0.04 µg g−1 (Na), 0.001 µg g−1 (P), 3 µg g−1 (B), 1.4 µg g−1 (Cu), 0.4 µg g−1 (Fe), and 3 µg g−1 (Mn). Applying chemometric techniques, such as Principal Component Analysis, Linear Discriminant Analysis, and Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis, allowed us to distinguish the authentic samples from the adulterated ones clearly. With the help of chemometric tools, it was found that K is a key marker to identify adulteration. The applied techniques demonstrated high precision in detecting adulterations and providing a confidence limit to identify banana flour fraud, proving to be a promising tool for ensuring the authenticity of green banana flour.