Towards Fast In-line Measurement of Water Activity

Abstract

Water activity is widely used as a key parameter in controlling the quality of food and feed products, among others. For determining the water activity, the material is sampled from the manufacturing process and measured in the laboratory with water activity analyzers. The sampling procedure can lead to non-representative measurements, the measurement process is time consuming, and much of the produced material may be wasted before the measurement results are available. To reduce waste and to be able to optimize production processes, industry requires in-line measurement of relevant quality determining parameters, hereunder the water activity. In cooperation with a manufacturer of systems for automatic in-line sampling and measurement of moisture, density, and the size of items, a project was defined to also enable the manufacturer’s existing products to perform automatic measurement of the water activity in a sample. The aim was to develop a measurement system with the ability to operate in an industrial environment, which in the end would increase the measurement speed significantly and minimize the problems related to the handling of samples. In the paper the selection and characterization of the sensors, the design of a measurement chamber, and various issues of modeling and methods to reduce measurement time are discussed. The paper also presents water activity measurements obtained from food and feed products with the system, and shows that reliable results can be obtained in a few minutes with a proper design of the measurement chamber and selection of a model.