Density measurement of food products
- Identification
- How does it work?
- What can it be used for?
- What can it not be used for?
- Implementation
- Related Facilities
- Further Information
Identification
| Key words | Density, measuring density, quality control, food control |
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| Latest version | 2012/03/03 |
| Completed by | UTCN |
How does it work?
| Primary objective | It is a quality verification method for a large range of food products and represents an important quality control method in both scientific and industrial fields. | |||
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| Working principle | Density of a material is defined as its mass per unit volume. It is closely related to:
Each material has its own density, but density is not an intrinsic material property because it also depends on temperature and pressure. If the temperature increases, the volume expands and the density of an object decreases (notable exception: density of water increases between 00C and 40C).
The effect of pressure and temperature on the density of liquids and solids is small since, for typical cases the compressibility is 10−6x105−1 and the thermal expansivity is 10−5K−1. | |||
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| Additional effects | Density measurements cause no additional effects and also help to discover other properties (f.i. photoanalysis): | |||
| Important process parameters | temperature, pressure
In case of the vibration density measurements the stability of vibration generator is important too. In case of the nuclear density measurements additional process parameters such as nuclear radiation intensity, irradiation angle, source-sample and sample-detector distances are also important. | |||
| Important product parameters | product state (solid, liquid or gas), product dimensions, geometry, consistency |
What can it be used for?
| Products | Density measurements are used in food technology for a large number of products:
Density is frequently used in the food and soft drinks industry to provide the Brix value that expresses the sugar content of the drink. For the fragrance and flavours industry density is a primary measurement for determining the quality of incoming raw materials [5-7]. |
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| Operations | Quality control, food packaging control, separation processes. |
| Solutions for short comings | Quality control through density measurement. |
What can it NOT be used for?
| Products | No restricted products. Even in the case of nuclear density measurement the controlled products suffer no changes. |
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| Operations | None |
| Other limitations | In the case of nuclear density measurements restrictions derived from the regulations concerning the use of radiation sources must be taken into account. |
| Risks or hazards | None |
Implementation
| Maturity | Density measurements are a mature control method. |
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| Modularity /Implementation | Density measurements can be easily implemented on a production line. |
| Consumer aspects | The use of nuclear sources for density measurements may produce anxiety of the consumer. However, the regulations concerning the use of nuclear sources are very strict and eliminate possible negative effects. |
| Legal aspects | Many industry standards are used for density measurements:
The nuclear density measurements must be done according to the regulations concerning irradiation of food products. The European Community has the most restrictive regulations mandatory by EC-directive and maintaining a number of national regulations. The most important regulations are:
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| Environmental aspects | The uses of density measurements according to the regulations do not produce environmental effects; in case of nuclear density measurements the environmental aspects depend of the each country legislation. |
Facilities that might be interesting for you
Further Information
| Institutes | |
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| Companies | Anton Paar, Krüss |
| References | 1. Phyllis J. Stumboa, Rick Weiss, Using database values to determine food density, Available online 7 May 2011, Journal of Food Composition and Analysis.
2. Banu Koç, İsmail Eren, Figen Kaymak Ertekin, Modelling bulk density, porosity and shrinkage of quince during drying: The effect of drying method, Journal of Food Engineering, Volume 85, Issue 3, April 2008, pp. 340-349 3. Shinoj Subramanian, R. Viswanathan, Bulk density and friction coefficients of selected minor millet grains and flours,Journal of Food Engineering, Volume 81, Issue 1, July 2007, pp. 118-126 4. Jerry O. Wolff, The effects of density, food, and interspecific interference on home range size in Peromyscus leucopus and Peromyscus maniculatus, Canadian Journal of Zoology, 1985, 63:2657-2662 5. Guo Wei; Jian Liu; Jinwei Sun; Shida, K., Estimating Viscosity and Density of Ternary Solution Based on Least-Squares B-Spline Approximation, Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference Proceedings, 2007, IMTC 2007, Warsaw, Poland, IEEE, pp.1- 5 6. P. C. Singh, R. K. Singh, R. S. Smith and P. E. Nelson, Evaluation of in-line sensors for selected properties measurements in continuous food processing, Food Control, vol.8, issue 1 (1997) pp.45-50 7. K. A. Mirica, S. T. Phillips, Ch. R. Mace and G. M. Whitesides, Magnetic Levitation in the Analysis of Foods and Water, J. Agric. Food Chem. 58, 11 (2010), pp. 6565-6569 |