Seafood Authentication Application Note

Raman spectroscopy is a technique which is used for several markets. These industries include Oil and Gas, Pharmacology, Biotechnology, Petrochemistry and many others. Due to the high selectivity of Raman spectroscopy, it is a powerful tool for many applications including, hydrocarbon analysis, bioreactor protein monitoring, crystallization monitoring, API concentration, polymer identification, surfactant analysis, natural gas components and several others....

Typical applications include white light interference for thin film analysis, UV absorption of proteins for quantitative analysis, colorimetry, impurity detection in water, cleaning validation for API manufacturing, polymerization inhibitor monitoring, electroplating bath monitoring....

NIR spectroscopy is utilized across a variety of industries for qualitative and quantitative product analysis. Typical industries include Chemistry, Pharmacology, Food Feed & Beverage, Agriculture, and others. NIR spectroscopy is well suited for species containing C-H, N-H & O-H bonds, making it a wide-range technology for a variety of applications such as moisture, fat, oil, alcohol, APIs, polymers, etc....

Spectroscopy is the study of the interaction of light with matter. Light covers a broad range of the electromagnetic spectrum from high energy ultra violet (UV) photons to the near infrared (NIR), with the visible spectrum that we can see being in between. These different portions of the spectrum are important because they interact with matter in different ways. In the UV, these photons have high energy and therefore can induce electronic transitions, while the NIR photons can cause molecules to vibrate at unique frequencies. The way that we measure where compounds absorb light is by taking a spectrum, which is a graph showing the transmission of light as a function of the wavelength. All compounds have a unique absorption spectrum which can be used to identify the chemical composition of samples....

The spectroscopic methodology is determined by which parameters are important to monitor during a process. For example, if you want to monitor protein concentration in a bioreactor, in which the biosynthesis takes place in an aqueous medium, then you likely would want to use Raman spectroscopy for the application, as water does not contribute to the Raman signal. Alternatively, if moisture content is important, water has very strong absorption in the NIR due to several vibrational and combination modes that can be monitored; water is transparent in the UV and visible spectral region. Understanding which chemical is important as there could be various factors that influence the choice of methodology....