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Nondestructive Measurement of Soluble Solids Content in Apples by a Portable Fruit Analyzer

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Abstract

Feasibility studies of using a portable fiber spectrometer in conjunction with multivariate and variable screening analysis were investigated for noninvasive inspection of the internal quality of fruit. A highly effective illumination with circular reflective accessories was designed to reflect the divergent light of the lamps onto the sample. The penetrating spectra of the apples were measured for soluble solids content (SSC) at 550 to 985 nm in transmission mode with different numbers of lamps illuminating. The illumination was optimized with six lamps by comparison to the performance of partial least square (PLS) models. Stepwise multiple linear regression (SMLR), genetic algorithm (GA), successive projective algorithm (SPA), uninformative variable elimination (UVE), and their combinations were comparatively employed to screen the important wavelengths and promote the robustness of the calibration model. Finally, the novel calibration model built using UVE-SPA-MLR method on 21 screening wavelengths (only 1 % of all) exhibited higher coefficient of prediction (r p) of 0.951 and root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP) of 0.39 % brix for the prediction set. This study shows that the accuracy of the quantitative analysis conducted by the developed analyzer can meet the requirement for practical use.

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Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the National Key Technology R&D Program of China (2012BAD29B04-4), the Major Natural Science Research Foundation of Jiangsu Colleges and Univerisities (15KJA550001) and the innovation project of scientific research in Jiangsu Colleges and Universities (1291360015).

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Conflict of Interest

Lei-ming Yuan declares that he has no conflict of interest. Jian-rong Cai declares that he has no conflict of interest. Li Sun declares that he has no conflict of interest. En Han declares that he has no conflict of interest. Teye Ernest declares that he has no conflict of interest. This paper does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Food and Biological Engineering, Jiangsu University, Xuefu Road 301, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province, 212013, China

    Lei-ming Yuan, Jian-rong Cai, Li Sun & En Han

  2. School of Agriculture, College of Agriculture and Natural Sciences, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana, West Africa

    Teye Ernest

Authors
  1. Lei-ming Yuan
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  2. Jian-rong Cai
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  3. Li Sun
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  4. En Han
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  5. Teye Ernest
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jian-rong Cai.

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Highlights

• An effective illumination was developed to acquire the transmitted spectra for portable analyzer.

• The number of included lamps was optimized via apple’s SSC by multivariable analysis.

• Several variable selection methods were proposed to develop a robust calibration model.

• A combined modeling strategy was provided that was well suitable for fruit’s interiors.

• External samples were used to test the stability of the fruit analyzer.

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Yuan, Lm., Cai, Jr., Sun, L. et al. Nondestructive Measurement of Soluble Solids Content in Apples by a Portable Fruit Analyzer. Food Anal. Methods 9, 785–794 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12161-015-0251-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12161-015-0251-2

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