PLS MODELING FOR EVALUATION OF ANTIOXIDANT POTENTIAL IN Clitoria ternatea l.

Interest in functional foods with antioxidants has grown due to their potential health benefits. Clitoria ternatea L. is rich in phenolic compounds and anthocyanins, but its stability can be compromised during processing. Foam bed drying represents a promising strategy to protect these bioactives and expand their use in functional products. This study evaluated the stability of the compounds of the sun-dehydrated Clitoria ternatea, extracted in hydroalcoholic solution (40%) and subjected to foam bed drying in six different formulations (P1, P2, P3, P4, P5 and P6), with different combinations of additives such as gum arabic, albumin, pectin, proteins and gums. The experimental data were analyzed by multivariate statistics, using partial least squares regression (PLS-R) and variable importance analysis (VIP), in order to identify the additives with the greatest contribution to the preservation of bioactive compounds. The PLS-R model showed excellent predictive power (R²Y = 0.92; Q² = 0.85). The VIP (Variable Importance in Projection) analysis indicated gum arabic (VIP = 1.52), albumin (VIP = 1.38) and pectin (VIP = 1.31) as the main positive contributors. The coefficients suggest that gum arabic mainly influenced total phenolic compounds (CFT, +0.42) and anthocyanins (ANT, +0.45), while albumin was associated with increased antioxidant capacity measured by FRAP (+0.38) and DPPH (+0.32). Cross-validation confirmed the robustness of the model (p < 0.001), with RMSEP of 10.8 for CFT and 7.9 for DPPH