Developing and testing a new quantitative near infrared spectroscopy online tracking measuring system for soil detection during automatic dishwashing

Abstract

Near infrared (NIR) measurements have been used for several years to examine the processes taking place in the dishwasher during dishwashing. It is possible to differentiate between the soil components butterfat, oatmeal and egg-yolk and to determine their concentration in the dishwashing liquor quantitatively. Consequently, time-consuming dishwashing tests can be avoided by weighing the dishes. However, this method is also based on a small number of NIR measurements which are carried out intrusively during the dishwashing process, i.e. outside the dishwasher. These few NIR measurements make it difficult to investigate the dynamics of a dishwashing process. In this study, the development, testing and usage of a new online tracking measuring system is presented. The latter was used to perform 38 dishwashing processes, each containing 51 NIR spectra, to develop a calibration model using the partial least squares regression method with cross-validation. This new online tracking measuring system, based on the calibration, can determine the concentrations of three different soil components in the dishwashing liquor during automatic dishwashing. By recording the 51 spectra, it is possible to display a tracking curve for each soil component, i.e. the concentration courses of the dishwashing process over time. This results in a significantly better time resolution and it was possible to investigate the first dynamic part of the tracking curve, i.e. the beginning of the dishwashing process. This could lead to the opportunity to change the state of the dishwasher depending on the concentrations detected in the first step and, secondly, to a more environmentally friendly and cost-reducing dishwashing process.