The latest news, trends, analysis, interviews and podcasts from the global food and beverage industry

Delta Instruments has developed a screening method for its FTIR instruments to detect melamine in raw milk. Successful field tests have been carried out to check on possible adulterated raw milk.

The screening method uses Delta Instruments' NPN-CU (Non Protein Nitrogen-Calculated Urea) approach, and therefore it has been given the parameter name NPN-Calculated Melamine (NPN-CM).

With this new screening method, the Delta Instrument CombiScope FTIR 400 precision analyser will be capable of measuring added melamine.

Designed to meet the analysis needs of dairy herd improvement and payment laboratories, the CombiScope FTIR 400 analyses raw milk for fat, protein, lactose, total solids or non-fat solids, as well as somatic cell count.

In case of unadultereated milk, accurate estimates of urea are calculated from IR-readings for the NPN contents of milk samples through simple slope/intercept adaptation of NPN-readings.

In case of adulteration with melamine as to increase the protein content of milk, a useful estimate of the melamine content can be calculated in the same way from the NPN content, since both urea and melamine show a strong response for the NPN milk model.