Determination of salt content in various depth of pork chop by electrical impedance spectroscopy

The salt concentration was determined inside of pork chop both by electrical impedance spectroscopy and by a conventional chemical method (according to Mohr). The pork chop in various depths (4 mm, 10 mm, 20 mm and 25 mm) was punctured with two stainless steel electrodes. The length of electrodes was 60 mm, and they were insulated along the length except 1 cm section on the end, so the measurement of impedance was realized in various depths. The magnitude and phase angle of impedance were measured with a HP 4284A and a HP 4285A LCR meters from 30 Hz up to 1 MHz and from 75 kHz up to 30 MHz frequency range, respectively at 1 V voltage. The distance between the electrodes was 1 cm. The impedance magnitude decreased as the salt concentration increased. The magnitude of open-short corrected impedance values at various frequencies (10 kHz, 100 kHz, 125 kHz, 1.1 MHz and 8 MHz) showed a good correlation with salt content determined by chemical procedure. The electrical impedance spectroscopy seems a prospective method for determination the salt concentration inside the meat in various depths during the curing procedure.