Comparison of a silver nanoparticle-based method and the modified spectrophotometric methods for assessing antioxidant capacity of rapeseed varieties

The antioxidant capacity of 15 rapeseed varieties was determined by the proposed silver nanoparticle-based (AgNP) method and three modified assays: ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), 2,2′-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and Folin–Ciocalteu reducing capacity (FC). The average antioxidant capacities of the studied rapeseed cultivars ranged between 5261–9462, 3708–7112, 18864–31245 and 5816–9937 μmol sinapic acid (SA)/100 g for AgNP, FRAP, DPPH and FC methods, respectively. There are significant, positive correlations between antioxidant capacities of the studied rapeseed cultivars determined by four analytical methods (r = 0.5971–0.9149, p < 0.05). The comparable precision for the proposed AgNP method (RSD = 1.4–4.4%) and the modified FRAP, DPPH and FC methods (RSD = 1.0–4.4%, 0.7–2.1% and 0.8–3.6%, respectively), demonstrate the benefit of the AgNP method in the routine analysis of antioxidant capacity of rapeseed cultivars. The principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) were used for discrimination the quality of the studied rapeseed varieties based on their antioxidant potential determined by different analytical methods. Three main groups were identified by HCA, while the classification and characterisation of rapeseed varieties within each of these groups were obtained from PCA. The chemometric analyses demonstrated that, rapeseed variety S13 had the highest antioxidant capacity, thus this cultivar should be considered as the richest source of natural antioxidants.