Novel apparatus for monitoring simultaneously color and °Brix of selected fruit juices through RGB image analysis

This work introduces a novel apparatus for monitoring both color and °Brix of selected fruit juices. These parameters are essential for quality and processing control at concentration and dilution operations. The proposed apparatus performs the red, green, and blue (RGB) image analysis of the fruit juice as it flows through a transparent cell equipped with a webcam and a light source. The viewing cell is inside a box for controlling temperature and for ensuring homogeneous lighting. This apparatus not only measures the RGB color space of the fruit juice online but also allows relating it to the °Brix. The relationship between RGB and °Brix was obtained by measuring the RGB color space of various fruit juice samples, of which the °Brix were previously determined using a digital refractometer. RGB image analysis showed an excellent relationship with °Brix (R² > 0.99, using an exponential fit), allowing for monitoring reliably this parameter during continuous fruit juice concentration and dilution experiments. These results show the potential of this novel apparatus to substitute conventional instruments such as colorimeters and refractometers for online process monitoring. Furthermore, it has the advantage of not requiring sampling, which reduces measurement errors and saves time. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS: This work introduces a novel apparatus based on RGB image analysis for monitoring simultaneously the color and the °Brix of fruit juices. These parameters are important to control the production and quality of fruit juices, especially at concentration and dilution operations. The apparatus proposed here is a viewing cell where the RGB color space is quantified using the software RGBview® as the fruit juice flows through it. The °Brix are determined from the RGB color space using a suitable fit obtained from a previous calibration with juice samples with known °Brix. This is an alternative to conventional analytical instruments such as colorimeters and refractometers but with the advantage of performing an online measurement. This configuration allows for the reduction of analytical errors associated with sampling and saves time. Moreover, this apparatus has the potential to monitor other physicochemical properties related to the color of fruit juices.