Did you celebrate National Shower with a Friend Day last Month? Before you start to think that this blog has gotten NSFW (not safe for work), let us explain. The cheeky National Shower with a Friend Day was born out of a marketing strategy by a water filtration company in 2014. The goal: educate people... Continue Reading →
Transcend your calibration transfer woes in 10 steps (with Transpec)
A New Year means new beginnings! Heading into 2022 we’ve added some new members to our group: Isaac Rukundo and Kristen Frano are two product specialists who have recently joined the BUCHI NIR team! They contributed to the content of this post. We’re now amid that post-holiday trudge! Were you good enough last year for... Continue Reading →
Choose your Adventure: Taking NIR from the bench to production
This editorial on NIR calibration transfer from benchtop to production was submitted by Mark Sullivan, a Senior NIR Applications Specialist for BUCHI North America. Not long after many new users become accustomed to the speed and convenience of laboratory NIR over conventional techniques, it dawns on them that this technology is inherently suited for use... Continue Reading →
NIR as a tool for real-time quality determination of Distiller’s Dried Grains
In a prior blog, we shared how NIR online sensors could be used to optimize biofuel processes, starting at the farm, through fuel processing, and into feed applications. In this post we take a closer look at how NIR can be used as a measurement tool for a valuable co-product of the biofuel industry: distiller’s dried grains with solubles (DDGS). Most ethanol plants in the United States are dry-grind facilities, which use starch... Continue Reading →
Tales from the Lab: NIR vs. Dumas for Carbon and Nitrogen Determination
This blog was contributed by Dr. Mark Sullivan, Technical and Application Specialist at BUCHI Corporation. The head of a well-known agricultural testing laboratory recently approached me with an unusual request. This laboratory performs 10’s of thousands of plant tissue analyses annually using the Dumas combustion technique for total nitrogen and carbon (AOAC Official Method 972.43).... Continue Reading →
From the Field to Fuel to Food: On-line Process Control of Grain, Biofuel and Co-Products
Summer is coming to a close, and the once plentiful corn stands that dotted country roads and even well-traversed city highways are beginning to dwindle down in number (replaced by donut stands, thankfully). Despite countless summer BBQs tugging on the supply chain at peak season, the vast landscape of cornfields in the Midwest (and beyond)... Continue Reading →
NIR vs. Kjeldahl
Protein is a critical parameter across the food, beverage and feed industries. However, the best solution for obtaining protein varies across the production cycle. In this blog, we propose Kjeldahl and near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy methods for protein determination, with arguments for which technology is the best fit based on factors such as: Application scopeVariation in... Continue Reading →
Considerations for Qualitative NIR Method Development
Goal-setting When we start to think about method development so many things come to mind. It’s a great idea to clearly define the goals of a project so that we can plan efforts and resources in such a way as to meet those goals. So, what should be our expectation, or goals, when we use... Continue Reading →
Primary Method Feature: Kjeldahl (Part 1: Kjeldahl Foundations)
Why are we talking about Kjeldahl on the NIR blog? This blog has made many mentions to the fact that near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy is a secondary method. That means that NIR doesn't measure things like moisture, fat, protein, ash, %-polymerization or anything else directly. Instead, we use an acceptable primary method, like Kjeldahl, to produce... Continue Reading →
BUCHI and CEMSI: Partners in Integration
A rapidly rising consumer food company needed NIR technology to quickly test final product quality in their pilot plant R&D facility. The R&D team wanted an NIR to provide non-contact, process control measurements of food products passing rapidly by on a conveyor belt. However, being a pilot facility, they desired adjustable and temporary mounting approaches... Continue Reading →