A portable diffuse reflectance spectrophotometer for the rapid and automatic measurement of meat pigments

A portable reflectance spectrophotometry system, which can measure a wide range of absorbance and has an adhesive pad type fibre optic probe, was developed to improve the availability of non-invasive reflectance spectrophotometry. A Czerny-Turner type spectrometer, which can be connected to an optical fibre probe, was developed, and a linear charge coupled device (CCD) was used as its light detector to increase data acquisition speed. The scanning time of the linear CCD is automatically controlled in accordance with the reflectance of meat to increase the dynamic range of absorption. We tried to apply this instrument to samples of meat pigments in order to demonstrate whether reflectance spectrophotometry is suitable for evaluating the freshness of meat. We examined the myoglobin solution in the form of the met-derivative in order to detect the concentration of myoglobin. The absorbance spectrum of myoglobin in the range of 0-4 mg dl(-1) was successfully distinguished with this instrument.