Towards using NMR to screen for spoiled tomatoes stored in 1,000 L, aseptically sealed, metal-lined totes

Michael D Pinter; Tod Harter; Michael J McCarthy; Matthew P Augustine

doi:10.3390/s140304167

Towards using NMR to screen for spoiled tomatoes stored in 1,000 L, aseptically sealed, metal-lined totes

Sensors (Basel). 2014 Mar 3;14(3):4167-76. doi: 10.3390/s140304167.

Authors

Michael D Pinter¹, Tod Harter², Michael J McCarthy³, Matthew P Augustine⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, University of California, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA. mdpinter@ucdavis.edu.
² The Morning Star Packing Company, Woodland, CA 95695, USA. tharter@morningstarco.com.
³ Department of Food Science and Technology, University of California, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA. mjmccarthy@ucdavis.edu.
⁴ Department of Chemistry, University of California, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA. maugust@ucdavis.edu.

Abstract

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is used to track factory relevant tomato paste spoilage. It was found that spoilage in tomato paste test samples leads to longer spin lattice relaxation times T1 using a conventional low magnetic field NMR system. The increase in T1 value for contaminated samples over a five day room temperature exposure period prompted the work to be extended to the study of industry standard, 1,000 L, non-ferrous, metal-lined totes. NMR signals and T1 values were recovered from a large format container with a single-sided NMR sensor. The results of this work suggest that a handheld NMR device can be used to study tomato paste spoilage in factory process environments.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Food Packaging*
Food Quality*
Metals / chemistry*
Preservation, Biological*
Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy / methods*
Solanum lycopersicum / chemistry*
Sterilization*

Substances

Metals