Determination of phenolic compounds by a polyphenol oxidase amperometric biosensor and artificial neural network analysis.

The determination of phenolic compounds is significant given its toxicity, even at very low concentration levels. Amperometric determination of phenols is a simple technique available. Direct oxidation of phenols can be used, but another possibility is the use of polyphenol oxidase (tyrosinase) enzyme biosensors that oxidises the phenolic compounds into their corresponding quinones. Reduction of the resulting quinones accomplishes the amplification of the amperometric signal, as long as the result of the reduction process is the corresponding cathecol, this being able to be oxidised again by the polyphenol oxidase immobilized on the surface of the biosensor. In this communication, simultaneous determination of different phenols was carried out combining biosensor measurements with chemometric tools, in what is known as electronic tongue. The departure information used was the overlapped reduction voltammogram generated with the amperometric biosensor based on polyphenol oxidase. Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) were used for extraction and quantification of each compound. Phenol, cathecol and m-cresol formed the three-analyte study case resolved in this work. Good prediction ability was attained, and so, the separate quantification of these three phenols was accomplished.