Investigation Of The Quality Of Edible Oil (Niger) By Laser Light Scattering Technique

Abstract

The main technique of this work is to investigate the quality of edible oil by using laser light scattering. In this experiment a continuous wave frequency 35 mw He-Ne (632.8 nm) laser, lock-in amplifier, chopper, spectrometer scale was used as an apparatus. Niger oil was used as sample. The experimental set up was carried out and necessary data were recorded, and then analyzed to get different optical properties and particle size of edible oil sample. The optical properties of the diffusing medium (Niger oil) such as the absorption, scattering, reduced scattering, effective attenuation coefficients and anisotropy factor were determined and tried to relate with the quality of edible oil. In this research, efficient and objective discrimination of edible oil varieties and quality determination method is developed by investigating particle size dependency of quality of edible oil by using laser light scattering technique. Particle size determination for Niger oil was performed after determination of its optical properties with three phases of experiments. The results show that, the tested sample has high scattering coefficient in the forward direction as compared to its negligible absorption coefficient and its scattering coefficient has direct relation with its particle size as well as its quality, the larger the scattering coefficient is the finest the particle size and the highest the quality. In general the obtained results were in good agreement with Mie scattering theory in the review literature. Thus, the developed method has wider economic and scientific applications, even for other turbid mediums. Light scattering method is recommended as alternative method for classification of edible oil quality standards.