A rapid and cost-effective method to measure the chromium concentration in cottonseed meal by near infrared spectroscopy

Chromium (Cr) is a toxic heavy metal that is harmful to human beings if it enters the foodchain. The traditional analytical method to measure Cr content in samples is complex and expensive. Therefore, it is desirable to establish a rapid and cost-effective method for the determination of Cr content. In this study, used near infrared spectroscopy combined with chemometrics was to measure the Cr content in cottonseed meal. Multiplicative scatter correction was selected as the optimal spectral pre-treatment. Monte Carlo uninformative variable elimination (MC-UVE) was applied to select informative wavelengths from the full spectrum. Finally, the optimal near infrared calibration model for Cr determination in cottonseed meal was generated with high coefficients of correlation (R 2 of 0.93) and ratio performance deviation (RPD) of 3.5. These results indicated that the model is efficient and accurate for rapid measurement of Cr content in cottonseed meal, which can substitute the traditional analytical method.