Utilization of NIR Spectroscopy for Factory Control

摘要

NIR spectroscopy (MRS) is an analytical technique that has been expanding into many industries for both analytical and control purposes. NIR is used widely in the food processing and grain industries throughout the world. The sugar industries in Australia, South America, Brazil and Florida are currently using NIR for factory control and/or cane payment. NIR can provide analytical results faster than conventional analyses, and can be used as a laboratory instrument or online. The main benefits of NIRare lower labor and chemical costs and more consistent analytical results. Audubon Sugar Institute and Enterprise Factory in Louisiana worked together to perform a proper evaluation in a factory laboratory to demonstrate the feasibility of a Foss NIR 5000 beverage analyzer for factory control in Louisiana. NIR proved to be at least as accurate as the factory laboratory and capable of providing multiple constituent analyses with one scan. Audubon personnel prepared the calibrations and evaluated the feasibility of combining sample spectra in order to reduce the number of calibrations and to increase the data range to make the calibrations more reliable for varying samples. Comparisons of the laboratory data and the NIRS data will be presented as well asthe calibration comparisons. All data used in the calibrations were obtained from the Enterprise Factory laboratory. A final molasses calibration that included HPLC sugars, conductivity ash, and vacuum oven dry solids was the only exception. The transfer of calibration data from one NIRS to another is one of the challenges of this technology. The final molasses calibration was utilized, but required several bias and slope adjustments using factory data.