OP6 - Quality Assurance of Grain with Colour Line Scan Cameras

Event
SENSOR+TEST Conferences 2009
2009-05-26 - 2009-05-28
Congress Center Nürnberg
Band
Proceedings OPTO 2009 & IRS² 2009
Chapter
OPTO Poster Session
Author(s)
P. Brueckner, K. Anding, H. Weissensee, M. Dambon - Technische Universität Ilmenau, Ilmenau, Germany
Pages
139 - 144
DOI
10.5162/opto09/op6
ISBN
978-3-9810993-6-2
Price
free

Abstract

Grain especially wheat is one of our most important foodstuffs. A lot of strict regulations exist for the quality assurance of grain. The strict quality criteria contain prescriptive limits for several fractions in grain, especially for toxic and unsound constituents as well as specific baking properties of flour. There are already many procedures and equipment for the determination of specific baking properties like gluten content, protein content, falling number and moisture content of grain. But the acceptance of cereal in mills is still based on a subjective visual inspection by a miller or a laboratory assistant. This kind of quality control is time consuming and error-prone. The manual analysis of elements in a grain sample is called "Besatz analysis of cereal" and is described in the ICC standard methods from the international Association for Cereal Science and Technology. The main fact of this method is to separate all groups of Besatz from the normal basic grains by sieving and manual selection. 8esatz are all matters of a sample of grain which are other than the basic cereal of unimpaired quality. The unhealthy and noxious impurities (a part of the so called miscellaneous impurities), e.g. fungus-covered grain (in particular with fusarium) and ergot, have a specific relevance because of the negative effects of the metabolic waste products of fungi on humans and animals.
The existence of noxious substances like fusarium toxins (e.g. Deoxynivalenol, Zearalenon) can be detected by using rapid diagnostic tests without accurate results or by time-consuming laboratory tests like immune-chemical methods (ELISA) or chromatographic methods (thin layer chromatography, high performance liquid chromatography) with high-precision results.
But often a grain delivery requires a very fast decision for acceptance or refusal with regard to compliance with quality criteria. So the results of the Besatz analysis of cereal are very deciding for acceptance or refusal of the delivery by lorry, railway-car or ship and therefor in case of acceptance for adequate payment.
In this context conventional methods like the manual Besatz analysis are disadvantageous because of their high subjective and time-consuming characteristics and their small sample sizes with low confidence level.

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