NIRS technology advantages

These four very different NIR technologies represent the mainstream analyzer types used in many process analytical technology applications. They also cover the main types of established commercially available analyzers. Given their various characteristics and the physical principles upon which they are based, it is obvious that they will have different advantages and disadvantages depending on the detailed circumstances of the application. These issues will be covered in more detail below. 

With the exception of soybeans (the pulse commodity that is most widely traded) the many advantages of NIR spectroscopy do not appear to have attracted the same amount of attention from pulse crop breeders and processors. Some compositional and functionality factors of pulse crops to which NIR technology has been applied are summarized in Table 7.1.4. 

Finally, in the field of full-spectrum NIRS methods, Fourier transform near-infrared (FTIR) analyzers are included (Figure 5.5). FTIR techniques are predominant in mid-infrared spectroscopy because there are clear and absolute advantages for the FTIR analyzer in the mid-infrared compared with any other available technology. This arises because of the low power output of mid-infrared sources and the low specific detectivity... 

Aside from univariate linear regression models, inverse MLR models are probably the simplest types of models to construct for a process analytical application. Simplicity is of very high value in PAC, where ease of automation and long-term reliability are critical. Another advantage of MLR models is that they are rather easy to communicate to the customers of the process analytical technology, since each individual X-variable used in the equation refers to a single wavelength (in the case of NIR) that can often be related to a specific chemical or physical property of the process sample. 

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