Salila Vijayalal Mohan, H. K., & Malcolm, A. A. (2022). A novel low-cost capacitance-based approach for non-destructive evaluation of powder quality for food processing industries. Measurement: Sensors, 23, 100395. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.measen.2022.100395
Abstract:
In a high-volume food production line, several stainless-steel hoppers store, mix and dispense powdered in-
gredients to form food powders of the desired composition. Improper mixing at high speeds and caking (for-
mation of lumps) during storage hamper powder homogeneity and quality. Currently, low throughput offline
techniques such as spectroscopic analysis and powder flow tests are used to screen for powder mixing uniformity
and caking. Herein, a flexible electrode system is proposed to detect capacitance changes based on the dielectric
differences between different powders (beverage powders and their mixtures) and their subsequent variation
from poor mixing/caking. The detection scheme successfully differentiated different powder mixtures and
detected caking in powders non-invasively with good detection speed (50 ms) and low detection limits (15% for
powder mixing and 1–43% for powder caking). Furthermore, the capacitive system integrated with an industrial
food hopper successfully showcased an in-situ automated detection of powder caking
License type:
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Funding Info:
This research / project is supported by the A*STAR, Advanced Remanufacturing and Technology Centre (ARTC) - Industry Alignment Fund Pre- Positioning (IAF-PP) programme
Grant Reference no. : A19C2a0019