Ernest Teye

• BSc, MPhil, PGDip, PGCert, PhD.
• Professor (Full) at University of Cape Coast

This research examined the distinction between organic and conventional mango fruits, chips, and juice using portable near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy.

Purpose Despite the importance of plantains in food security, nutrition and socioeconomic development, their production over the years has not matched up with demand, simply because of their highly perishable nature and high post-harvest losses. Current attempts at increasing production levels have targeted converting plantains into forms that may...

African coffee is among the best traded coffee types worldwide, and rapid identification of its geographical origin is very important when trading the commodity. The study was important because it used NIR techniques to geographically differentiate between various types of coffee and provide a supply chain traceability method to avoid fraud. In thi...

Cocoa bean acidification, fermentation, and flavour quality are intricately shaped by pulp preconditioning and fermentation treatments. This study investigates the impact of predrying and subsequent fermentation on key parameters such as pH, titratable acidity, fermentation quality (% purity), fermentation index (FI), and overall flavour quality (g...

Palm oil is one of the most widely consumed food products globally. Despite the restriction of Sudan dyes as a food colouring agent, these dyes still feature prominently in palm oil adulteration, which occurs in most developing countries. The current study aims to provide insight into the recent palm oil adulteration over 18 years and the methods f...

The craving for organic cocoa beans has resulted in fraudulent practices such as mislabeling, adulteration, all known as food fraud, prompting the international cocoa market to call for the authenticity of organic cocoa beans before export. In this study, we proposed robust models using laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) and chemometric techniques fo...

Rapid and onsite determination of the soil status and quality parameters holds a brighter potential for improving food security, and minimizing waste of the excessive application of soil amendments hence reducing environmental pollution. In this study, a pocket-sized shortwave NIR spectroscopy (740–1070 nm) and multivariate statistics were used to...

Reliable and user-friendly discrimination of coffee bean integrity and quantification of adulteration in the coffee bean processing value chain would be vital for ensuring consumer trust in quality control and traceability management. In this research, a portable short-wave NIR spectroscopy coupled with chemometric data analysis was employed under...

Rapid and nondestructive measurement of moisture content in crude palm oil is essential for promoting the shelf-stability and quality. In this research, micro NIR spectrometer coupled with a multivariate calibration model was used to collect and analyse fingerprinted information from palm oil samples at different moisture contents. Several preproce...

To assess the contamination of processed chilli pepper and tomatoes, a report over the past four decades since the establishment of the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) was retrieved and analysed. Out of the 887 notification reports assessed for eligibility, 446 were found regarding chilli pepper and tomato contamination. This study ide...

The rise in population growth worldwide requires efficient management of agricultural lands through the correct determination of authentic fertilizers. In this current study, a rapid on-site detection technique was developed by using portable NIR spectroscopy in the wavelength range of 740–1070 nm together with optimum multivariate algorithms to id...

Coffee is the most consumed beverage and the second most valuable traded commodity in the world. In this current study, a pocket-sized spectrometer and multivariate analysis were used for rapid authentication of coffee varieties (Arabica and Robusta) in three states to check mislabelling (food fraud). Two main coffee varieties were collected from d...

Rice consumption is on the increase in Ghana and Africa as a whole. This has resulted in mislabelling and adulteration fraud that is affecting many players in the rice value chain. This research attempts to provide a user-friendly and reliable onsite analytical tool using a pocket-sized NIR spectrometer and multivariate data for detecting rice inte...

Food adulteration has become a threat to many countries as most individuals have consumed food items without knowing that it has been adulterated, leaving the consumer with various ailments. This study identifies the degree of adulteration in some commonly used food items bought by consumers and the means of detection. The study comprised 384 women...

Moisture content and pH are the most important quality parameters measured during the initial processing of cocoa beans at farm gate in developing countries like Ghana. This research investigates the possibility of using portable NIR spectroscopy and multivariate algorithms coupled with smartphone for measuring moisture content and pH at the farm g...

Onsite technique for determining drug integrity in Sub Saharan Africa is needed for ensuring drug integrity and enhancing public health. This current study presents the application of handheld NIR spectroscopic...

The global market for organic cocoa beans continues to show sturdy growth. A low-cost handheld NIR spectrometer (900-1700 nm) combined with multivariate classification algorithms was used for rapid differentiation analysis of organic cocoa beans’ integrity. In this research, organic and conventionally cultivated cocoa beans were collected from diff...

Ghanaian consumers’ confidence and trust in palm oil have become weak over the past few years. This research seeks to evaluate the quality and safety (Sudan adulteration) parameters of palm oil samples from seven major cities in Ghana using a completely randomized design with three replications. In all, 70 samples of palm oil were collected from di...

The study assessed the microbiological contamination of palm oil sold in the major cities of Ghana's oil-producing regions. Seventy samples (10 samples from each region) were randomly collected in sterile bottles and transported aseptically to the laboratory for analysis. AOAC standard methods and procedures were used to isolate and identify bacter...

Recent food borne diseases and food fraud scandals have raised consumers concerns over food safety issues and such concerns tend to affect their risk perceptions. This paper aims at investigating perceptions of rice safety among sampled consumers in Ghana and Nigeria, and to identify the determinants of rice safety perceptions. Using a total of 442...

Fermentation duration (FmD), fermentaion index (FI), pH and moisture content (Mc) are vital quality attributes of cocoa beans. In this study, portable near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and multivariate analyses were used for rapid determination of FmD, FI, pH and Mc of cocoa beans. The samples were scanned in 900 ‐ 1700 nm wavelength and the spectr...

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is among the poorest region in the world, and undernourishment continues to be a great challenge although this region is endowed with a lot of underutilized plant species (UUPS), which are rich in nutrients, especially micronutrients that are unavailable in staple foods. The potential for fortifying major staple foods with...

The potential of nondestructive prediction of egg freshness based on near-infrared (NIR) spectra fingerprints would be beneficial to quality control officers and consumers alike. In this study, handheld NIR spectrometer in the range of 740 nm to 1070 nm and chemometrics were used to simultaneously determine egg freshness based on marked date of lay...

Background Rice is an important staple food that is consumed around the world. Like many foods, the price of rice varies considerably, from very inexpensive for a low-quality product to premium pricing for highly prized varieties from specific locations. Therefore, like other foods it is vulnerable to economically motivated adulteration through sub...

Traceability in the cocoa bean trade is vital to ensuring quality. In this study, a handheld near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy was attempted for rapid and nondestructive regional and geographical classification of cocoa beans from different locations. Cocoa bean samples collected from; seven cocoa-producing regions in Ghana (Eastern, Ashanti, Volta,...

Shortwave handheld NIR spectroscopy coupled with multivariate algorithm was attempted to simultaneously classify and measure Sudan IV dye adulteration in palm oil samples. K-nearest neighbour (KNN) was used to develop a classification model to discriminate between authentic palm oil samples and Sudan IV dye adulterated (0.10 - 0.002 % w/w) ones. Pr...

Cocoa bean is an international commodity largely produced in developing countries and mostly consumed worldwide in several forms. During the last few decades, rapid detection of cocoa beans and cocoa bean products quality has gained centre stage with many kinds of research conducted. However, no reviews about the application of NIR spectroscopy for...

Non-destructive, simple and fast techniques for identifying authentic palm oil and those adulterated with Sudan dyes using portable NIR spectroscopy would be very beneficial to West Africa countries and the world at large. In this study, a portable NIR spectroscopy coupled with multivariate models were developed for detecting palm oil adulteration....

The potential of predicting maturity using total soluble solids (TSS) and identifying organic from inorganic pineapple fruits based on near-infrared (NIR) spectra fingerprints would be beneficial to farmers and consumers alike. In this study, a portable NIR spectrometer and chemometric techniques were combined to simultaneously identify organically...

Rice is the second most important food staple worldwide and the demand will continue to increase with the growth of the world population. As reports grow that frauds is prevalent in many supply chains there is the need for an effective and rapid technique for monitoring the authenticity and quality of rice. This study investigated the novel applica...

For simultaneous and quantitative prediction of three toxic heavy metal residues (Pb, Cd and Hg) in fish, the novel and low‐cost colorimetric sensors array was fabricated. Forty eight fish samples (Carassius carassius) retailed in Zhenjiang, China, were used. Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry was employed as the reference analytical meth...

Developing nutrient-rich vegetable flour using locally under-utilized food crops in Africa would improve rural house-hold nutrition. This study seeks to develop nutrient-dense vegetable flour from different proportions of Sweet potato (Sp) 40–100%, Avocado pear (Avo) 10–40%, and Turkey berry (Tor) 10–40%, using completely randomized design (CRD) wi...

Tea is gaining increasing consumer attention due to a growing awareness of the health benefits derived from its consumption. Even though several underutilized plants exist with potentials for processing into tea, research in formulating tea using underutilized crop in Ghana is limited. In this study, roselle, ginger and turkey berry were used to fo...

Gari is a major staple food for many West Africans. This study aimed at evaluating the quality parameters of gari, price per quantity in “Olonka” (a local measuring container) and develop a nondestructive simple technique for assessing adulteration. A completely randomized design (CRD) was used with three replications. The samples of gari were coll...

Introduction: Rapid identification of cocoa bean varieties is vital for the authentication in cocoa trade. This paper examines the use of Near Infrared (NIR) Spectroscopy for nondestructive identification of cocoa bean cultivars. Methods: In this study, five cocoa bean cultivars (IMC85 x IMC47, PA7 x PA150, PA150 x Pound7, Pd10 x Pd15 and T63/967 x...

Presents corrections to ???The interaction study of colorimetric sensor array and volatile organic compounds using density functional theory,??? (Gu, H., etal) IEEE Sensors J., vol. 14, no. 8, pp. 2620???2625,Aug. 2014.

Feasibility studies of using a portable fiber spectrometer in conjunction with multivariate and variable screening analysis were investigated for noninvasive inspection of the internal quality of fruit. A highly effective illumination with circular reflective accessories was designed to reflect the divergent light of the lamps onto the sample. The...

The objective of this study was to establish quantitative evaluation models for fish microbiological quality analysis based on electronic tongue technique coupled with nonlinear pattern recognition algorithms. Crucian carp stored at 4 C were used. A commercial electronic tongue system was employed. The total viable counts ( TVC s) of fish samples w...

Electronic tongue coupled with linear and non-linear multivariate algorithms was attempted to address the drawbacks of fish freshness detection. Parabramis pekinensis fish samples stored at 4°C were used. Total volatile basic nitrogen (TVB-N) and total viable count (TVC) of the samples were measured. Fisher liner discriminant analysis (Fisher LDA)...

For rapid evaluation of fish freshness, a colorimetric sensor array has been developed for the sensitive detection to measure simultaneously TVB-N and K value of fish during its storage period. Silver carps were taken as fish samples which were stored at constant temperature of 4 °C during experiment period. 10 kinds of porphyrin compounds and 6 pH...

Colorimetric sensor array is a novel device for detecting volatile organic compounds with low-cost, sensitive, and convenient advantages. Sensor design is the limiting factor to detect special VOCs. A systematic investigation was carried out to study binding ability and following sensor changes of SnP and its complexes under the ground and excited...

Titratable acidity (TA) and fermentation index (FI) are important quality indicators of cocoa beans. This paper attempted the simultaneous analysis of these indicators by electronic tongue (ET) and two multivariate calibrations. ET was used for data acquisition, while partial least squares (PLSs) and principal component support vector machine regre...

Rapid and nondestructive measurement of freshness is essential for control of fish and its products’ quality and safety. In this study, K value was measured by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and employed as an index of fish freshness. The prediction models of the silver chub freshness were developed using Fourier Transform Near Infra...

Colorimetric sensor array is a novel sensor to identify and detect food freshness, microorganism, and toxic gas. The current sensor design depends on the experience and experiments, which are the bottleneck for the future development of colorimetric sensor array. The reaction ability of colorimetric sensor array is reflected by two factors of stron...

This article examined the potential of sensor fusion of near‐infrared spectroscopy ( NIRS ) and electronic tongue ( ET ) together with multivariate analysis, for the accurate and rapid classification of five cocoa bean varieties. Optimum data extraction was done from each sensor and principal component analysis was used for data fusion by normaliza...

Density functional theory (DFT) method with B3LYP/LANL2DZ basis set was performed to investigate the influence of different cations on the binding process of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to metalloporphyrins. The optimized ground state of VOCs-metalloporphyrins is carried out to calculate binding energies, relative spin state energies, electro...

Total polyphenols content (TPC) is an important measure of phytochemicals in cocoa beans due to its numerous health benefits. This work attempts to measure the total polyphenols content in cocoa beans by using a novel approach of integrating near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and electronic tongue (ET). 110 samples of cocoa beans with different poly...

Cobalt porphyrin and similar metalloporphyrins (MPs) were initially used in the colorimetric sensor array (CSA) system for quality assurance and quality control in beverage and food. In order to design a proper CSA sensor, density functional theory method with B3LYP/LANL2DZ basis set was performed to investigate the influences of axial ligand, subs...

A colorimetric sensor array is a rapid and high sensitivity sensor for the detection and identification of volatile organic compounds. Theoretical investigations are performed to study the binding ability of the colorimetric sensor array with volatile organic compounds. Cobalt-porphyrin is selected to investigate the binding ability of the colorime...

Total fat content is a major quality parameter that chocolate manufactures consider when selecting cocoa beans. This paper attempted the feasibility of measuring total fat content in cocoa beans by using Fourier transform near-infrared (FT-NIR) spectroscopy based on a novel systematic study on efficient spectral variables selection multivariate reg...

To achieve the rapid and nondestructive determination of bamboo shoots lignification associated with crude fiber content and firmness, Fourier transform near infrared (FT-NIR) spectroscopy technique was used in this paper. The identification of efficient spectral variables selection algorithms: backward interval PLS (Bi-PLS), Monte Carlo uninformat...

Electronic tongue as an advanced and novel emerging technology has been successfully utilized for the rapid identification of cocoa beans according to their geographical locations. Seven categories of cocoa beans from Ghana were used in this experiment. Electronic tongue system was used for data acquisition while three pattern recognition methods w...

A new method was developed to detect fish freshness nondestructively by combining electronic nose (E-nose) and electronic tongue (E-tongue) in conjunction with chemometric methods. An E-nose with nine metal oxide semiconductor gas sensors and a commercial E-tongue were employed in this research. Pseudosciaena crocea stored at 4 °C for different day...

Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) technique as an advance innovative technology has come to stay in food, chemical, pharmaceutical, petrochemical industries. This technology coupled with the development of chemometric techniques has become a powerful, fast, reliable and non-destructive analytical tool for the measurement of qualitative and quantita...

The physical properties of Cocoa are necessary for the design of equipment to handle, transport, process and store the commodity. Cocoa beans can be categorised into several groups based on their sizes. A comparative study of the physical properties of the large group (category B) and the medium group (category D) Cocoa beans were evaluated as a fu...

In this study, evaporative cooling barn was designed, constructed and tested using two varieties of sweet potato. The mean dry bulb température and relative humidity of the inside and outside air stream were 25°C and 90% and 31.5°C and 67.5%, respectively. The Systems cooling efficiency was determined to be 127%. A test on the evaporative cooling b...

The storage of sweet potato tuberous roots in tropical countries is a major challenge to farmers and retailers due to unfavourable climatic conditions. In this research the storage performance of sweet potato roots in an evaporative cooling barn was investigated with three différent pre-storage treatments - ash, brine and Lantana camara extract to...

The storage of sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas L.) is confronted with a myriad of post harvest challenges resulting in heavy losses during marketing and storage in tropical Africa. In this study two storage structures were evaluated and compared for the storage of two sweet potato varieties. A completely randomized design (CRD) was used and the roots...