Rapid, sensitive, and reproducible screening of liquid milk for adulterants using a portable Raman spectrometer and a simple, optimized sample well

Abstract

We have developed a powerful general spectroscopic method for rapidly screening liquid milk for adulterants by combining reflective focusing wells simply fabricated in aluminum with a small, portable Raman spectrometer with a focusing fiber optic probe. Hemispherical aluminum sample wells were specially designed to optimize internal reflection and sampling volume by matching the focal length of the mirror to the depth of focus of the laser probe. The technique was tested on milk adulterated with 4 different nitrogen-rich compounds (melamine, urea, dicyandiamide, and ammonium sulfate) and sucrose. No sample preparation of the milk was needed, and the total analysis time was 4 min. Reliable sample presentation enabled average reproducibility of 8% residual standard deviation. The limit of detection interval measured from partial least squares calibrations ranged between 140 and 520 mg/L for the 4 N-rich compounds and between 7,000 and 36,000 mg/L (0.7–3.6%) for sucrose. The portability of the system and the reliability and reproducibility of this technique open opportunities for general, reagentless screening of milk for adulterants at the point of collection.