Evaluation of the moisture content of tapioca starch using near-infrared spectroscopy

The purpose of this study was to develop a calibration model to evaluate the moisture content of tapioca starch using the near-infrared (NIR) spectral data in conjunction with partial least square (PLS) regression. The prediction ability was assessed using a separate prediction data set. Three groups of tapioca starch samples were used in this study: tapioca starch cake, dried tapioca starch and combined tapioca starch. The optimum model obtained from the baseline-offset spectra of dried tapioca starch samples at the outlet of the factory drying process provided a coefficient of determination (R2), standard error of prediction (SEP), bias and residual prediction deviation (RPD) of 0.974, 0.16%, -0.092% and 7.4, respectively. The NIR spectroscopy protocol developed in this study could be a rapid method for evaluation of the moisture content of the tapioca starch in factory laboratories. It indicated the possibility of real-time online monitoring and control of the tapioca starch cake feeder in the drying process. In addition, it was determined that there was a stronger influence of the NIR absorption of both water and starch on the prediction of moisture content of the model

Classification of the Crosslink Density Level of Para Rubber Thick Film of Medical Glove by Using Near-Infrared Spectral Data

Classification of the crosslink density level of para rubber medical gloves by using near-infrared spectral data combined with machine learning is the first time reported in this paper. The spectra of medical glove samples with different crosslink densities acquired by an ultra-compact portable MicroNIR spectrometer were correlated with their crosslink density levels, which were referencely evaluated by the toluene swell index (TSI). The machine learning protocols used to classify the 3 groups of TSI were specified as less than 80% TSI, 80–88% TSI, and more than 88% TSI. The 80–88% TSI group was the group in which the compounded latex was suitable for medical glove production, which made the glove specification comply with the requirements of customers as indicated by the tensile test. The results show that when comparing the algorithms used for modeling, the linear discriminant analysis (LDA) developed by 2nd derivative spectra with 15 k-best selected wavelengths fairly accurately predicted the class but was most reliable among other algorithms, i.e., artificial neural networks (ANN), support vector machines (SVM), and k-nearest neighbors (kNN), due to higher prediction accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score of the same value of 0.76 and no overfitting or underfitting prediction. This developed model can be implemented in the glove factory for screening purposes in the production line. However, deep learning modeling should be explored with a larger sample number required for better model performance