Foreign matter can become mixed with food products during the production process for a variety of reasons. The discovery and identification of foreign matter and ascertaining its source are essential for maintaining food safety.
Shimadzu's non-destructive testing and analytical technologies can be used to detect foreign matter that is not externally visible and analyze for the elemental or molecular components.
The Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrophotometer measures the organic foreign matter spectrum and compares it with library data to identify the foreign matter. The example below shows the analysis of contamination on a frozen pizza. Some of the foreign substance was scraped off the frozen pizza, and the infrared spectrum was measured using a transmission infrared microscope. The spectrum of this foreign object was similar to that of a fluororesin.
FTIR Spectrophotometer
IRTracer-100
Infrared spectra of contaminant and fluororesin
An energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) spectrometer permits the easy and rapid identification of inorganic foreign matter adhering to, or mixed into, food products. Below is an example of the qualitative analysis of a metal fragment on chocolat
Energy Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometer
EDX-7000/8000/8100
Metal foreign matter on chocolate
EDXIR-Analysis software is specially designed to perform an integrated analysis of data from FTIR and EDX. The library used for data analysis (containing 485 data as standard) is original to Shimadzu.
