2008 Volume 57 Issue 8 Pages 485-490
Black pepper is easy to be contaminated by microorganism and often processed to γ-irradiation. ESR has been used for the detection of radicals induced in irradiated spices. Using ESR, we revealed the effects of moisture condition during storage of irradiated black pepper on the saturation behavior of ESR signal. The ESR spectrum of black pepper consists of a broad sextet centered at g=2.0, a singlet at same g-value and a singlet at g=4.0. The irradiation causes two new signals, one is the strong and sharp singlet signal at g=2.0 and the other is the side signal.
We found that the signal intensity originated by the radicals of black pepper with and without radiation decayed in the high humidity condition during storage. The ESR signal intensity of irradiated black pepper decayed during storage and showed almost the same intensity level as that of non-irradiated black pepper during storage.
