An assessment of the potential application of the method of attenuated total reflectance (ATR) infrared qualitative analysis to food materials

Abstract

SummaryThe ATR method is described and its application to food materials in the form of solids, powders, solutions and colloidal mixtures is considered. It is shown that the ATR method has several advantages over the conventional infrared technique. In particular the ATR technique eliminates the need to measure sample thickness and also simplifies the experimental procedure. It enables the spectra of aqueous, colloidal, viscous and complex multicomponent materials to be obtained more easily than in transmission measurements and in such cases often yields more useful spectra. ATR spectra generally show less detail than corresponding transmission spectra, and it is this lack of sensitivity that is the main limitation of the technique.