Investigation of Excitation Wavelength for Fluorescence Emission of Citrus Peels based on UV-VIS Spectra

A study was conducted to investigate the best wavelengths for fluorescence excitation and the resulting fluorescence wavelengths in the range of 300-700 nm with citrus peels taken from 15 varieties, which are concerned with detection of surface defects of citrus fruits. Characteristics of UV absorbance, excitation and fluorescence spectra were observed by variety, and principle components analysis (PCA) and discriminate analysis (DA) were used to categorize the citrus varieties by fluorescence intensity levels in order to give some tips for optimizing the fluorescence imaging based machine vision system. The observed proper excitation wavelength for best fluorescence emmision and resulting peak fluorescence wavelength varied variety to variety and ranged from 350 to 380 nm and 490 to 540 nm respectively. The selected varieties of citrus were categorized successfully into four groups of known fluorescence level, namely strong, medium, weak and no fluorescence groups.