A reagent-free SIA module for monitoring of sugar, color and dissolved CO2 content in soft drinks Original Research Article

This work presents a new sequential injection analysis (SIA) method and a module for simultaneous and real-time monitoring of three key parameters for the beverage industry, i.e., the sugar content (measured in Brix), color and dissolved CO2. Detection of the light reflection at the liquid interface (the schlieren effect) of sucrose and water was utilized for sucrose content measurement. A near infrared LED (890 ± 40 nm) was chosen as the light source to ensure that all the ingredients and dyes in soft drinks will not interfere by contributing light absorption. A linear calibration was obtained for sucrose over a wide concentration range (3.1–46.5 Brix). The same module can be used to monitor the color of the soft drink as well as the dissolved CO2 during production. For measuring the color, the sample is segmented between air plugs to avoid dispersion. An RGB-LED was chosen as the light source in order to make this module applicable to a wide range of colored samples. The module also has a section where dissolved CO2 is measured via vaporization of the gas from the liquid phase. Dissolved CO2, in a flowing acceptor stream of water resulting in the change of the acceptor conductivity, is detected using an in-house capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detector (C4D). The module includes a vaporization unit that is also used to degas the carbonated drink, prior the measurements of sucrose and color within the same system. The method requires no chemicals and is therefore completely friendly to the environment.