Bijay Kafle
Ph.D. Student
The main aim of my Ph.D. project entitled “Online FTIR analysis for food quality measurement” is to develop and use a portable dry-film FTIR system for industrial food quality analysis and process monitoring.
Fourier-transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) is a technique based on the vibrations of the atoms of a molecule, in the spectral region of 4000-400 cm-1 that allows detailed chemical fingerprinting of foods and other matrices and is widely used in the food industries as a high-throughput laboratory technique.
The project has two main tasks: The development of a low-cost and portable dry-film FTIR system and the development of novel FTIR applications, with the main emphasis on protein quality analysis.
One main target of analysis in the project is the quality of protein ingredients obtained during enzymatic protein hydrolysis of poultry and salmon by-products. I am also studying the use of FTIR for revealing storage-induced changes in milk since microorganisms can release proteases that break down certain milk proteins and decrease overall milk quality and shelf-life.
I have a background in clinical pharmacy, quality control of pharmaceuticals and natural products, and analytical chemistry.
