Developing a Vis/NIR spectroscopic system for fast and non-destructive pesticide residue monitoring in agricultural product.

In this research, an optical system based on fibre optic Vis/NIR spectroscopy combined with chemometrics methods and software as a graphical user interface (GUI) was developed and presented for fast and non-destructive detection and determination of pesticide residues in agricultural products (a case study on diazinon in intact cucumbers). Vis/NIR spectra of cucumber samples without and with different concentrations of diazinon residue were analyzed at the range of 450–1000 nm. Partial least squares (PLS) regression models were developed based on chemical reference measurements and the spectral information of the samples after performing different pre-processing methods. Moreover, partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) models were developed based on different spectral pre-processing techniques to classify cucumbers with contents of diazinon below and above the maximum residue limits (MRL) as safe and unsafe samples, respectively. Finally, user-friendly software as a GUI was created based on the best PLS and PLS-DA models developed for prediction of diazinon contents in the samples and for classification of intact cucumbers by the absence/presence of diazinon residues, respectively. Evaluation of the system and software designed based on the best developed PLS and PLS-DA models indicated good performance for measuring and detection of diazinon residue in cucumbers. It was concluded that the designed system and software based on Vis/NIR spectroscopy combined with chemometrics methods can be utilized for fast and non-destructive safety control of intact cucumbers by the absence/presence of diazinon residues. It can also be generalized for detection of other pesticide residues in agricultural products if developing their appropriate models is feasible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]