1 Rapid NMR Method for Simultaneous Analysis of Moisture and Fat in Food Samples

Maxin Diel, CEM Corporation, Camp-lindfort, Germany

The quantitative analysis of fat is of critical importance for process control and testing in many food and other types of samples. In recent years, time domain nuclear magnetic resonance (TD-NMR) has gained widespread acceptance as a highly accurate and repeatable rapid technique for the analysis of fat in around 30 seconds. As a rapid technique, NMR is advantageous for compositional analysis because it measures the entire sample (not just the surface) and is unaffected by sample color or granularity. It can also be easily coupled to a microwave drying system thereby providing rapid moisture and fat analysis in both wet and dry products.

However, to date TD-NMR has had certain limitations that have limited its use. This has been the need to develop unique methods for different sample types that require known wet chemistry reference values. Therefore, unknown sample have required reference chemistry values that require time and effort and are not able to analyzed by NMR without prior knowledge.

We present here a novel TD-NMR method developed in 2016 with the unique ability to completely isolate detection of protons on fat molecules from all other NMR signals. This breakthrough allowed for the universal fat analysis of virtually any type of food sample on a single method without any prior knowledge or reference chemistry. This was demonstrated by the analysis of over 30 different food products from < 1% to 80% fat on a single method. Many of the samples were certified reference materials (CRM’s) and all showed correlation to wet chemistry reference techniques. Additionally, improvements in repeatability was observed compared to reference techniques due to the simplified analysis process by NMR. Therefore, this technique demonstrates the potential to become the first rapid and direct reference technique available for fat analysis and reduce repeatability errors from reference chemistry techniques.

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Short Biography of Presenting Author

We present here a novel TD-NMR method developed in 2016 with the unique ability to completely isolate detection of protons on fat molecules from all other NMR signals. This breakthrough allowed for the universal fat analysis of virtually any type of food sample on a single method without any prior knowledge or reference chemistry. This was demonstrated by the analysis of over 30 different food products from < 1% to 80% fat on a single method. Many of the samples were certified reference materials (CRM’s) and all showed correlation to wet chemistry reference techniques. Additionally, improvements in repeatability was observed compared to reference techniques due to the simplified analysis process by NMR. Therefore, this technique demonstrates the potential to become the first rapid and direct reference technique available for fat analysis and reduce repeatability errors from reference chemistry techniques.