Infrared attenuation measuring system
First Claim
1. A method for the quantitative determination of the concentration of one or more components in an aqueous fat-containing sample by an infrared attenuation measuring technique, the method comprising measuring the infrared attenuation of a sample in one or more wavebands and calculating the concentrations of the components of the fat-containing sample from the measured infrared attenuation values of the sample using a set of waveband-related parameters, the parameter set containing information ensuring that the calculated concentrations are substantially independent of the degree of homogenization of the fat-containing sample, said information being derived from a calibration with aqueous fat-containing samples having different degrees of homogenization.
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Abstract
An infrared attenuation measuring system, for the quantitative determination of the concentration of one or more components in an aqueous fat-containing sample, such as milk, by an infrared attenuation technique. The system comprising a set of waveband-related parameters containing information enabling the system to calculate the concentrations substantially independent of the degree of homogenization of the fat-containing sample, and/or to determine the degree of homogenization of the sample. The parameter set contains parameters which are related to wavebands containing a high degree of information about the homogenization degree of the sample. This may be wavebands containing little information about the chemical components of the sample, and/or wavebands containing a substantial amount of information about the chemical components of the sample. The system is calibrated with aqueous fat-containing samples with different degrees of homogenization. The calculating means may be a microprocessor calculating the concentration of the component or components in question, or a neural network defined by the wave band-related parameters. The wavebands in which the attenuation values are determined in the infrared attenuation measuring means may be defined by optical filters, stationary grating and movable and/or multiple detectors, or by movable grating and one or several stationary or movable detectors. The infrared attenuation measuring means may comprise an interferometer, the data obtained from the interferometer being processed using Fourier transformation; and infrared attenuation measuring means of this type may be a FTIR spectrophotometer.
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Citations
42 Claims
- 1. A method for the quantitative determination of the concentration of one or more components in an aqueous fat-containing sample by an infrared attenuation measuring technique, the method comprising measuring the infrared attenuation of a sample in one or more wavebands and calculating the concentrations of the components of the fat-containing sample from the measured infrared attenuation values of the sample using a set of waveband-related parameters, the parameter set containing information ensuring that the calculated concentrations are substantially independent of the degree of homogenization of the fat-containing sample, said information being derived from a calibration with aqueous fat-containing samples having different degrees of homogenization.
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21. A method for the quantitative determination of the concentration of one or more components in an aqueous fat-containing sample by an infrared attenuation measuring technique, the method comprising measuring the infrared attenuation of a sample in one or more wavebands and calculating the concentrations of the components of the fat-containing sample from the measured infrared attenuation values of the sample using a set of waveband-related parameters, the parameter set containing information ensuring that the calculated concentrations are substantially independent of the degree of homogenization of the fat-containing sample, so that a comparison between the measured fat content of an unhomogenized raw milk sample containing 2-4% of fat with the measured fat content of a sample of the same raw milk homogenized to a mean fat globule diameter of volume of 1 μ
- m, shows a relative deviation of at the most 4%.
- View Dependent Claims (22, 23)
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24. A method for the quantitative determination of the concentration of one or more components in an aqueous fat-containing sample by an infrared attenuation measuring technique, the method comprising measuring the infrared attenuation of a sample in one or more wavebands and calculating the concentrations of the components of the fat-containing sample from the measured infrared attenuation values of the sample using a set of waveband-related parameters, the parameters containing information being derived from a calibration with aqueous fat-containing samples having different degrees of homogenization.
- 25. A method for the calibration of an infrared attenuation measuring system for the quantitative determination of the concentration of one or more components in an aqueous fat-containing sample by an infrared attenuation measuring technique, the system calculating the concentrations of the components of the fat-containing sample from measured infrared attenuation values of the sample using a set of waveband-related parameters, the method comprising establishing the parameter set by calibrating the system with aqueous fat-containing samples with different degrees of homogenization.
- 31. A method for the determination of the degree of homogenization of an aqueous fat-containing sample by an infrared attenuation measuring technique, the method comprising measuring the infrared attenuation of the sample in one or more wavebands and calculating the degree of homogenization of the fat-containing sample from the measured infrared attenuation values of the sample using a set of waveband-related parameters containing information being derived from a calibration with aqueous fat-containing samples having different degrees of homogenization.
Specification