Photonics for the Food Industry - Pro Physik
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Optics & Photonics
Courtesy of trinamiX
Fig. 1 There are different
mobile NIR spectroscopy
solutions to test food quality.
Photonics for the Food Industry
Spectroscopy revolutionizes quality, safety, integrity, and the taste of food.
Elena Beletkaia
The histor y of spectroscopy ‘invading’ the food industry. Such hydrates, salts, sometimes special
begins in the 17th century. A lot technologies make it possible to cha- bacteria or yeast and numerous mi-
of technological changes have ta- racterize the ripeness of fruits, grains nor components. The amounts, mo-
ken place since then, but the main and vegetables, detect raw material lecular structure and interactions
idea stayed the same: light provi- and water quality, and control pro- within food define the characteris
des information, whether we see cessing steps. They allow inspection tics of food products. Undesired
it or not. Advances in optics, gra- for foreign objects to be performed microbial growth or chemical and
tings, filters, coatings, lasers, and in a non-contact and non-destruc- enzymatic modifications make
detectors have made it possible tive manner. When a few spectral most food products naturally pe-
to extend the observations from imaging techniques are combined rishable. These changes deteriorate
the visible part of the spectrum with other imaging modalities and the sensory and nutritional quality
to the UV, NIR, MIR, and IR. enabled by AI, applications such of most foods. About 25 to 30 per-
as digital sorting become possible cent of food is lost due to micro
S pectroscopy has always played
an important role in chemistry,
physics, and astronomy and it is
directly within the production line. bial spoilage. So preservation and/
or processing techniques are often
applied to maintain the quality and
still gaining stronger positions in
Why new technology is needed extend the shelf-life of the products.
nearly every other industry. For the Food is complex. Often there are The quality of a food product can
past couple of decades, spectrosco- multiple components mixed to- be rated by its appearance, color, fla-
pic methods have been increasingly gether: water, fat, proteins, carbo- vor, and texture as well as chemical,
© 2021 Wiley-VCH GmbH Physics’ Best, April 2021 17
Optics & phOtOnics
biological and microbial factors, food quality, food fraud has to be Spectroscopic methods provide
like instability. Food quality and sa- prevented. fast, accurate and reliable solutions.
fety is an area of increasing concern Molecular and ultraviolet-visible
both for the general public and for (UV-vis) spectroscopy are among
the food producing and processing
Spectroscopy for food industry the most commonly used spec-
industries. The change in eating ha- Inspection of food and its ingre- troscopic techniques in food testing
bits and overall consumer behavior dients is carried out along the whole or food adulteration problems. Inf-
is leading to the development of de- farm-to-fork supply chain: preci- rared (IR) and near-infrared (NIR)
vices such as hand-held spectrome- sion agriculture, manufacturing spectroscopy are fast and easy-to-
ters. Companies like trinamiX [1] (raw material inspection, sorting, use and, thus, have long been used
and Bayspec already offer a number process control, machine vision, fi- for food applications. Fourier trans-
of solutions to characterize various nal product inspection), laboratory form infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy
products (Fig. 1). Technology deve- analysis, product development, and is also routinely used in cases of
lopment and miniaturization will the regulatory and supply chain va- suspected food fraud.
very soon enable integrating these lidation. Traditionally food quality
into a smartphone, allowing consu- and quality changes caused by pre-
mers to test the properties of food servatives are evaluated using sen-
IR technologies
on the market or at home. sory and microbiological analysis Infrared technologies can yield
The globalization of the supply or physicochemical measurements. both qualitative and quantitative
chain along with the increasing po- These methods, while reliable, are information for the investigation
pulation has caused increased de- destructive and time consuming of the chemical composition and
mand for food, which is resulting and do not support online assess- food ingredients. IR spectroscopy
in a rise in food fraud. Food fraud ment. There is an increasing de- is commonly used in the dairy in-
includes any deliberate action al- mand for inline and online quality dustry. Applying broadband NIR
tering, substituting, mislabeling, control and food safety, including spectroscopy with a discrete-filter-
tampering or misrepresenting a decontamination, inspection of based NIR analyzer, the production
food product to gain undue advan- cleanliness on production line sur- of different types of cheese can be
tage. Fraud can occur at different faces, in pipes etc., detection of pa- monitored. Fiber-optic NIR sen-
stages: raw material, ingredient, fi- thogens, allergens and mycotoxins. sors, such as those developed by art
nal product or food packaging. This Also, there is a need for foreign photonics, provide the information
is considered to be the second most body detection, whether metal or from product bulk and can there-
significant black-market activity in low-density materials, such as pla- fore be applied to monitor processes
the EU. So to meet the high expecta- stic, wood, egg and nut shell, fruit such as yoghurt incubation.
tions of the consumer in the overall stones, or glass fragments. NIR technology used with a dio-
de array delivers results in seconds
rather than several hours as many
traditional chemical analysis me-
Courtesy of art photonics
thods do. Such time reduction ena-
bles the collection of a large number
of spectra and still performs a mul-
ticomponent analysis in seconds.
Moisens developed by art photonics
combines specific wavelength LED-
sensors with individual IP-addres-
ses in a fiber probe, enabling data
collection in the iCloud and process
optimization in real time (Fig. 2).
NIR spectroscopy has a huge
potential for meat quality assess-
ment due to its non-invasive analy-
tical advantages. It rapidly detects
freshness, protein and fat content,
predicts sodium content in com-
Fig. 2 Test your beer with IR-fiber spectroscopy. mercially processed meat and in
18 Physics’ Best, April 2021 © 2021 Wiley-VCH GmbH
Optics & phOtOnics
vacuum-dried ham slices. It is also have made Raman spectroscopy nella, escherichia coli), antibiotics
widely used for grains and flours, applicable in many areas. A Raman (penicillin, tetracycline, oxytetra-
chocolate and syrups, herbs and spectrometer can be used for moni- cycline), and food additives (aspar-
spices, coffee, tea, mineral water toring and quality control in indus- tame, salicylates). Other important
and many other foodstuffs. trial food processing, food safety in applications of fluorescence are the
Mid-infrared (MIR) spec- agricultural plant production as well identification and quantification
troscopy is a valuable technique as inspections through different ty- of components, contaminants and
for food-related research and qua- pes of packing. Like IR spectrosco- additives.
lity control purposes in the food py, Raman spectroscopy allows While the spectroscopy tech-
industry. FTIR is most commonly quantification and characterization niques described and others benefit
used because it is a fast, non-de- of the lipid components of food and many processes in the food indus-
structive and reliable technique the quantitative analysis of the de- try, the diversity of techniques and
for authentication analysis. For gree of unsaturation. In addition, parameters renders implementation
example, an FTIR spectrophoto- it enables the characterization of a challenge. In some cases, a com-
meter could detect adulteration in polymorphism and chain packing, plex and comprehensive software
honey using glucose/fructose solu- the monitoring of interactions with solution is required to combine
tions with a detection accuracy of other food components or changes information from different measu-
95 %. FTIR spectra also often help which are induced by processing or ring methods. In other cases, the
to authenticate fats and oils, for in- storage (as auto-oxidation or iso- required solutions can be very
stance. However, it is important to merization). customer dependent. There is no
use chemometrics as an analytical Fluorescence spectroscopy can unique standard to provide a com-
data treatment to convert the in- be used for the identification, clas- prehensive characterization of food
formation from FTIR spectra into sification, quantification, and op- parameters.
understandable data. timization of different parameters
during food handling, processing, [1] F. Schmidt, N. Christiansen, and R. Lo-
vrincic, PhotonicsViews 17, 56 (2020)
and storage. However, the technique
Raman and fluorescent is usually linked with liquid chro-
spectroscopy matography in the food industry.
Conventional Raman spectrosco- Such a combination is advantageous Author
py exhibits a small scattering cross for detecting extremely low con- Dr. Elena Beletkaia, EPIC – European Pho-
section for many materials. Never- centrations of contaminants such tonics Industry Consortium, Rue Hamelin 17,
theless, the advances in electronics, as toxins (mycotoxins), pathogenic Paris, France; e-mail: elena.beletkaia@epic-
lasers, optics, and nanotechnology microbes (bacterial species: salmo- assoc.com, www.epic-assoc.com
FIBER OPTIC COMPONENTS
polarization-maintaining for wavelengths 360 – 1800nm
60FC-SF series with
super fine-focussing
60SMF series
with super fine thread
Fiber Port Clusters 2 6
Used in quantum optics,
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e.g. for cooling and
trapping experiments (MOT)
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