New Ultralow-Cost Telemetric System for a Rapid Electrochemical Detection of Vitamin C in Fresh Orange Juice

Ascorbic acid (AA), one of the principal nutrients in horticultural crops, plays a key role in the human metabolism and its determination in food products has a great significance. Citrus fruits are rich in AA, but its content is highly susceptible to change during postharvest processing and storage. We present a new ultra-low-cost system, constituted by an amperometric microsensor composed by three rod carbon electrodes connected to a telemetric device, for online detection of AA in orange juice, as an alternative to conventional analytical methods. The in vitro calibration and juice analysis were calculated by adding low volumes of sample into an acetate buffer solution at a constant potential of +120 mV vs carbon pseudo reference. This new approach, which is simple, expandable, and inexpensive, seems appropriate for a large scale commercial use.