BUCHI Labortechnik AG has launched Proximate, a robust and cost-effective NIR Instrument designed especially for the food and feed industries.
Proximate is designed to offer unmatched chemical and mechanical resistance and provides users with fast, accurate data on essential parameters during various stages of food production. Vahé Iplikci, Director Business Unit Food & Feed at BUCHI, said: “The harsh environment in food and feed processing facilities makes it challenging to quickly and reliably analyse samples for quality control or process optimisation purposes.
“With Proximate, we have created an NIR spectrometer that offers class leading performance and unrivalled robustness demonstrated by IP 66 Ingress Protection certification against water and dust. The hygienic, intelligently designed instrument is at-line ready, which enables analysis of samples from many stages of production.”
The instrument has been optimised for easy operation and cost-efficient sample processing, with a system which autocalibration capabilities with targeted pre-installed calibrations, an intuitive touchscreen interface and a user-friendly operating system with a report editor. ProxiMate has been standardised to allow for seamless integration with other BUCHI production line and laboratory NIR instruments as well as easy transfer from any other legacy spectrometers.
“Our newest NIR-spectrometer caters only to the food and feed industries and is therefore designed to precisely and cost-efficiently meet their needs,” continued Mr. Iplikci. “With its unique down-view option, Proximate is suitable for sample analysis in glass-free production environments or with large sample dishes for products with inhomogeneous distribution. The wide wavelength range of the machine allows for measurement of parameters that are independent of NIR such as colour and degree of bake or roast, as well as for improved calibration accuracy.”
The newest NIR-spectrometer complements BUCHI’s existing line of NIR solutions, which including NIR-Online, NIRMaster and NIRFlex N-500 instruments for applications in research and development and manufacturing in the pharmaceutical, chemical, food, beverage and feed industries. It meets the latest requirements of hygienic design and has been endorsed by the food hygiene agency HALAG. Specifically, the NIR-spectrometer enables accurate measurement of fat, protein, carbohydrate and moisture content for dairy, meat, grain, edible oil and feed processing applications.
