QUALITY CONTROL ■ 37
C&CI
Bühler acquires Sanmak Delta unveils new March 2010
Sources at Sanmak Indústria de Máquinas SA
in Blumenau in Santa Catarina, Brazil, have i-IQ/CCD colour
confirmed that the company was recently
acquired by Bühler Sortex. sorter
Delta Technology Corporation is
the coffee is stored in Almacafé’s warehouses; the well known for its optical colour
company already uses a number of protocols to sorter technology, and for models
determine quality and the purchase price for coffee such as its IGUAZU I/II optical
from farms in the area. The appearance and size of colour sorters.
coffee beans is important when assessing a sample, As the company notes, colour
but further tests have to be carried out in the cup. sorters are required to remove cof-
Cup tests are performed by expert cuppers, but fee beans with even the smallest
The Delta i-IQ/CCD employs advanced
this way of conducting quality control can be very defects, such as faint yellow dis-
CCD camera technology
subjective, and to some extent it depends on the skill colouration or insect bites. Not only
of the cupper and the level of training that he or she are colour sorters used to remove such defects, but also need to do so
has received. Moreover, not all the tasters are able to with optimal capacity. Manufacturers are also looking for new ways to con-
find every defect in every cup of coffee, a problem serve energy and reduce production costs, and features such as, Digital
which the authors of the paper point out can some- Signal Processors (DSPs) and vibratory feeders have become the focal
times causes loss of income. point of design and engineering in order to reduce production costs, main-
The main problem, they note, is a lack of standard- tenance costs and to conserve energy.
ization in cupping tests, which could be solved by "DSP techniques can be used to process high resolution images to dig-
making a classification of coffee based on a more ital signals with no time delay," the company told C&CI. "High speed signal
reliable organoleptic analysis – that is, an electronic transmission ensures the highest accuracy and efficiency in sorting.
nose that would be reliable enough to identify defects Traditional colour sorter processors require large amounts of cabling,
in coffee, as cuppers do, but in a way that would be which slows down digital signal conversion and reduces sorting accuracy.
more reliable and not affected by external factors. The new generation DSP board that Delta engineers employs is the latest
"Green and roasted coffee beans contain an appre- software that minimizes the cabling hence increases processing speed and
ciable amount of aliphatic hydrocarbons, probably sorting accuracy."
derived from the oxidation of green bean lipids during "Some other colour sorters use fans in the mother board chamber, which
storage or transport prior to roasting," said the authors can introduce fine dust or foreign material into the chamber," notes Delta.
of the paper, noting that the combination of gas chro- "Having minimal wiring inside the chamber minimizes the heat build-up."
matography and mass spectroscopy (GC-MS) is by Delta says its new proprietary DSP design dramatically increases sorting
far the most popular technique for the identification of efficiency, reduces potential maintenance costs and downtime, and the
volatile compounds in foods and beverages, and is a DSP can be upgraded if there are any future software updates.
technique that continues to be used widely in coffee Delta’s latest sorter, the i-IQ/CCD employs advanced CCD camera tech-
quality control laboratories. GC-MS is, they also note, nology. Each product feeder tray is equipped with two (monochromatic
an expensive and laborious business. sorters) or four (bi-chromatic sorters) CCD cameras. Each camera lens
As the authors of the paper also note, electronic scans every bean at a speed of 8,000 times per second, pixel by pixel. As a
noses have already been used in the coffee sector result, colour sorters with this kind of CCD technology are able to detect
for a number of applications, including the evalua- the smallest and faintest defects.
tion of the quality of Italian espresso coffee in order Delta ejectors are of proprietary design which internal wear and tear
to determine the best time for packaging; the identi- from the repetitive ejection action, which results in significantly longer
fication of various brands and blends; the detection ejector life, more accurate sorting and minimal maintenance downtime.
of aromas in coffee powder; classification of sam- Delta claims that the distance between each ejector is the smallest in the
ples with different levels of roasting. Other studies colour sorter industry which produces higher sorting accuracy as well as
have been used to classify different cultivars of cof- highly concentrated rejects, and as a result minimises the loss of good
fee and commercial blends; to evaluate coffee berry products.
ripening. Unlike conventional vibratory feeders, Delta’s vibratory feeders run on
Describing their results, the authors of the study modulated DC power, which produces consistent feeding speed. This fea-
said the sensitivity obtained by the gas sensors was ture also produces a power saving of 20 per cent compare with some
good, and the selectivity shown by the equipment other sorters in the market.
was adequate, and data processing with Principal
Component Analysis (PCA) and artificial neural net- The new colour sorter also has a number of user-friendly features, including:
works, was successful. "An electronic nose can be ■ Preset sorting modes for various grades of beans.
used for quality control in the coffee sector, since it ■ Large, easy-to-read, easy-to-use LCD screens
can classify different samples of coffee, coffee with ■ Automatic calibration to increase sorting accuracy and minimises human error.
defects in the cup and others," the authors of the ■ A fault detection system for easy diagnostic of air leaks and ejector fault.
report concluded. ■ C&CI
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