Pocket-Sized Optical Spectroscopy: Revolutionizing Agri-Food Analytics at Your Fingertips

Optical spectroscopy is transforming food analysis by providing a cost-effective and eco-friendly alternative to traditional methods. With its ability to deliver rapid and non-destructive measurements without the need for harmful chemicals or solvents, it allows green analytics for food quality and safety assessment.

By integrating AI-powered algorithms, optical spectroscopy can decode complex data and perform simultaneous analysis of multiple food components. A single flash of light, combined with advanced spectroscopic training, enables comprehensive quantitative and qualitative assessments of various nutraceutical indicators in one go. It’s an intelligent and sustainable solution for achieving superior food quality and safety standards.

Photonic technologies initially developed for telecommunications, generated an explosion of compact light sources, detectors, micro-spectrometers, spectral sensors, fiber optics, and micro-photonic components. These innovations are now transforming food control, providing compact, robust, and low-cost instruments that are perfect for online applications by users with minimal technical training, as well as by consumers.

In this webinar, Anna Grazia Mignani will show some of the latest and most compact optical spectroscopy devices, with special attention to those operating in the near-infrared and to pocket-sized and smartphone-connected models. She will show their applications in some food and agriculture applications as well.

What You Will Learn:
• Advantages of optical spectroscopy for food analytics
• Why to use pocket-sized spectral sensors

Who Should Attend:
• Generalists
• Specialists in food analytics

About the Presenter: Anna Grazia Mignani from CNR Istituto di Fisica Applicata "Nello Carrara"

Anna Grazia Mignani, a physicist by training and PhD in non-destructive testing, is Senior Research Associate at the Italian National Research Council, where she worked since 1984, recently as Research Director. Her work started with fiber optic sensors, then continued with optical spectroscopy-based sensors for environmental and industrial applications. Her most recent activity focuses on visible and near-infrared spectroscopy for food applications, especially for multicomponent analysis of quality and safety indicators by means of a single light shot and multivariate processing of spectroscopic data. She has been visiting scientist in laboratories in Belgium, Ireland and PR China, and is serving international funding agencies as expert evaluator. She is SPIE Fellow, and served the SPIE Board of Directors for the 2016-2018 term. Currently, she is Member-at Large of the IEEE Sensors Council, which she served as Chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee for the 2023-2024 term.