Speaker
Description
The authors’ group, in close cooperation with the rendering industry, has scientifically demonstrated the feasibility of NIRS technology for the determination of chemical and nutritional parameters of Processed Animal Proteins (PAPs) meals, using instruments with very different hardware and software, installed either at line or on-site. However, based on our experience, the availability of “ready to use” calibrations are of paramount importance for a massive uptake -by the rendering and feed industries- of the existing NIRS knowledge. Theirs use, will allow to the instrument buyers to get predictions from the day one after its installation. Nowadays, instrument providers and several NIRS analytical service companies are offering those type of calibrations. Although the existence of “ready to use” calibrations are an excellent first approach, for the spread of NIRS technology, they lack the precision desired by the users for the specific PAPs they manufacture or buy as animal feed ingredient. In fact, most of the existing “ready to use” calibrations for the analysis of PAPs have not been scientifically validated for their general applicability to the very different PAPs produced by each specific rendering plant. The main goal of this work is to contribute to scientific validation of “ready to use” calibrations for their applicability to PAPs produced by a rendering plant located in Southern Spain.
For this purpose, a total of 347 PAPs from the mentioned Spanish rendering plant have been analysed in two diode array NIR instruments: the DA7440 suitable for on-line analysis, and the DA7250, an at-line instrument, both marketed from the same commercial company (PerkinElmer Inc). Results will be shown about the predictive ability of “specific” PLS calibrations - for the prediction of the moisture, crude protein (CP) and ashes of PAPs- versus the use of “ready to use” calibrations.
