DETECTION OF AFLATOXIN CONTAMINATED FIGS USING NEAR-INFRARED (NIR) REFLECTANCE SPECTROSCOPY

Figs like other agricultural products may include cancerogenic aflatoxin which is caused by Aspergillus type molds. Under the UV illumination, a large portion of the aflatoxin contaminated figs expose Bright Greenish Yellow Fluorescence (BGYF) in visible light spectrum. Using the fluorescence properties, the contaminated figs are visually detected and manually removed by workers. However, this procedure could not eliminate all the aflatoxin contaminated figs and the UV exposure may cause skin cancer on workers under UV illumination. Besides, the reflectance outside the visible spectrum may include significant information for aflatoxin contamination. In this study, we investigate the NIR reflectance spectroscopy for the detection of aflatoxin contaminated figs and correctly classified the figs with 90% mean accuracy.