HACCP Metal Detection
The recent product recall by Unilever / Streets (Blue Ribbon ice cream) again highlights the challenges faced by food and beverage manufacturers with the ‘Holy Trinity’ of food safety, biological, chemical & physical contamination.
Current X-ray metal detection methods are restricted by their capability to detect metal contaminants which are 1mm or greater in size or happen to be in the correct orientation for detection. In complex food matrices, long and thin metal objects may pass undetected through an automated inspection system.
As a way of increasing the likelihood of detection researchers at the Toyobashi University of Technology have designed a highly sensitive metal detector.
Rather than rely on a metal object blocking X-rays to create an image the researchers designed a system which causes a metal contaminant to have a remnant magnetic field.
In laboratory trials detection was sensitive down to 0.3mm and the technology wasn’t affected by other radiation sources or metallic objects.
We have included some links to the overall concepts & the university’s research material.
The use of X-rays in food inspection