Comunicazione

# Non-destructive fruit internal quality control by TD-NIRS: From contact to non-contact measurements.

##### Levoni P., Vanoli M., Torricelli A., Spinelli L.
Venerdì 16/09   15:30 - 19:00   Aula E - Rosalind Franklin   V - Biofisica e fisica medica
Nowadays, fruit internal quality control is mostly based on destructive, sampling techniques, leading to product waste and bad quality of marketed products.In this study, we exploit a time domain near-infrared spectroscopy (TD-NIRS) device providing non-destructive, non-sampling fruit internal quality control, evaluating its suitability for the industry. Firstly, we assessed the degree of ripeness of a set of 1380 pears at harvest, by measuring absorption and reduced scattering coefficients of all pears in reflectance geometry at $671 {nm}$. Then, pears were divided into 23 comparable batches addressed to different storage conditions (atmosphere, chemical treatment, time), and evaluated again by TD-NIRS after storage.Secondly, we performed simulations for the design of a non-contact system suitable for the industry. Exploiting a homogeneous sphere model, we simulated different values of absorption and reduced scattering coefficient, injection-detection angle and sphere radius. The resulting detection signal results sufficient to perform TD-NIRS measurements, $i.e.$, a non-contact device can be developed.