Eat, Drink and Take Control of your Food Testing

MOC allows instruments to be made with the mathematics of pattern recognition designed directly into an optical computer. This computer extracts information from light without recording a spectrum. This improves the speed, dependability and ruggedness of process instruments.

Ometric SpectrInLine Processware couples the fundamental principles of optical spectroscopy, as interaction of light with matter, with the attributes of Multivariate Optical Computing. This coupling results in the following performance characteristics:

• Extremely high speed – up to 100 measurements per second;
• Industrial grade ruggedness: no moving parts, only passive, integrated optical elements, small size, direct coupling to process lines without use of fiber probes;
• No need for human interface: all chemometric computations performed by the optical computer with output measurement proportional to the concentration of the compound of interest;
• Broad spectral range: covers the whole spectrum from IR to UV;
• All modes of operation: reflection, transmittance, transflectance;
• All phases: powders, liquids, gases, slurries, emulsions, suspensions, etc.

This technology is being successfully applied to real-time, in-line process control and final product testing in a variety of industries.

In the food and beverage industry, this new technology can be applied real-time, in-line from process control of base materials, such as precision drying of various foodstuff compounds, to the detection and measurement of undesired chemical compounds, such as fats or carcinogenic chemicals, in food and beverage processing.

Designed with Real Time in Mind

The heart of the Multivariate Optical Computer is the Application Specific Optical Element (ASMOE). This element is designed, manufactured and integrated for the measurement of a specific compound of interest in a mixture.

A library of different ASMOEs can be used to adapt a single optical computer to the measurement of different analytes. An ASMOE is designed on the basis of a number of spectra, provided by the final user, depicting the universe of compounds and interferents typical of a certain process. No material samples, chemical identity, process data, or other sensitive information proprietary to the final user is needed for designing, validating and producing an ASMOE.

In-line for the Future

MOC technology is bringing optical spectrometers out of the labs and into industrial process lines.

The advantages of this proven optical analytical technique, coupled with the speed-of-light performance and “solid state” design of the optical computer, is providing many industries with the capability of real-time, in-line process control and final product assurance needed to meet present market and regulatory demands for a variety of products.

Thomas E. Persons, Sr., is president and CEO of South Carolina Technology Alliance (Columbia, S.C.). Reach him at 803-748-1327 or [email protected].