Bioanalizadores automatizados para la monitorización continua en procesos de control en la industria agroalimentaria

Resum

In the food industry, the importance of automation has increased dramatically in recent years due to the need to monitor, at low cost, and with minimal delay time and the greatest possible degree of reliability, certain chemical parameters that not only enable the control of a manufacturing or ripening process but also the final product in order to maintain quality standards that characterize some food products. Analytical methods traditionally used in the industry sometimes do not facilitate to perform continuous monitoring because they are expensive, require skilled operators and, in most cases, pretreatment of samples, making analysis time increase. Thus, the development of innovative instrumentation systems, which allow carrying out the analysis of the composition and properties of fresh and processed products, such as process analyzers, has become a driving element for the development and establishment of advanced maintenance strategies. These monitoring systems allow better control and anticipation in the industrial activities and the engineering of automatization plays a major role in their development. The progress of automation, one of the main areas of analytical chemistry, is inconceivable without rapid progress in computing. This science has allowed the automation of the various stages of the analytical process, helping to avoid errors associated with manual operations. Computing and modern analytical chemistry are so strongly interrelated that working in tandem in both disciplines is indispensable for the development of automatic and automated analyzers...