Title:
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Time-Domain NMR Studies of the Internal Quality of Horticultural Products
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Nuclear Magnetic Resonance was used to investigate selected fruit with internal
defects and at different stages of ripening. This was motivated by the
need for an industrial NMR sensor of fruit and vegetable quality capable of
operating at typical industrial conveyor speeds. Such a sensor requires the
development of NMR protocols capable of determining fruit and vegetable
quality in a single-shot manner. It also requires knowledge of which combination
of NMR parameters is most sensitive to the quality factor of interest.
In this thesis we therefore address this issue by exploring the off-line relationship
between NMR parameters and fruit quality. We mainly focus on three
areas: the detection of mealiness in apples, the single-shot measurement of
Brix, and a single-shot measurement of oil in avocado. One dimensional techniques,
measuring transverse relaxation times, were used as starting point.
The correlation between mealiness and one dimensional was not observed
at low fields. Therefore two-dimensional approaches were taken. The first
of these was correlation spectroscopy, which showed that the of the water
associated with the cell wall in mealy apples is much longer that that of fresh
apples. This in principle could be used to classify apples. The differences
between fresh and mealy apples observed with the second two-dimensional
protocol, could ~ot be used to classify apples. However, when the technique
was applied to avocado, it became clear that the difference between
the diffusion coefficients of water and oil could be exploited for an on-line
application. A fast pulse sequence was developed and the off-line measurements
showed a good correlation between oil content and the echo ratio. A
similar protocol was developed for the on-line measurement of Brix value in
apple and strawberry.
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