Seeking foreign body detection in opaque viscous food streams

Due to increasing quality demands from customers and consumers, foreign body elimination from products is more and more a licence to operate. Especially high throughput products that are opaque and viscous are quite challenging in this respect. Another complication is that there are different types of foreign bodies that can potentially be an issue. In this case, we aim for non-food borne materials such as metals, plastic, rubber.

Requirements

• Guaranteed detection of foreign particles (such as metals, plastic, rubber) within certain guaranteed size criteria (typically

Possible solution areas

• We found that X-ray, metal detection inline might be a partial solution NIR suitable for detection on conveyor belt but not applicable in pipes (?)
• Other technology solutions we will consider include (not limited to) CT/ MRI (NMR)/ microwave reflectance/ magnets (metal detection)

Discarded solutions

• Teraherz appears not suitable due to the presence of high water content