A method of testing the quality of milk using optical capillaries

Abstract

The milk quality is determined by its visual appearance, absence of adulterating substances and ability to meet specific quality standards for somatic cell count (SCC), and bacteria count. There exist several diagnostic tests of milk quality. Some of them are applicable on dairy farms, like, for example, the California Mastitis Test (CMT) and the Milk Conductivity Test (MCT). Other tests, such as the bulk milk bacterial count, the bulk tank somatic cell count and tests for adulterants like water, sediments or antibiotics, are used in laboratories. The knowledge required to successfully apply the existing milk quality tests can be rather extensive and pertains both to the methodology and the diagnostic capabilities of a given test. Therefore, there is a need for new simple and low-cost methods of milk quality testing. This paper presents a new method of milk quality classification using low-cost optical capillaries. In this method, milk quality is determined by observation of milk behaviour under specific heating conditions using a simple low-cost photonic system with optical capillaries. We show that the optical capillary is a suitable tool for analysing liquids showing high scattering of light, such as milk.

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