Measurement of pesticide residues in food based on diffuse reflectance IR spectroscopy

This paper describes nondestructive pesticide measurement of agricultural products based on Fourier transform infrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (FT-IR-DRS). Both FT-IR-DRS spectra and the concentration of the pesticide residues are measured for real lettuce samples. Thereafter, the calibration models to estimate the residual concentration of the pesticides are derived by the partial least square regression of the spectra. Cross validations of the calibration models are also carried out. By using this method, it takes two minutes to measure the multi-elements of pesticide residues in a sample lettuce head. Food safety inspection could be enhanced based on FT-IR-DRS.