Developing a Vis/NIR spectroscopic system for fast and non-destructive pesticide residue monitoring in agricultural product

In this research, an optical system based on fibre optic Vis/NIR spectroscopy combined with chemometrics methods and software as a graphical user interface (GUI) was developed and presented for fast and non-destructive detection and determination of pesticide residues in agricultural products (a case study on diazinon in intact cucumbers). Vis/NIR spectra of cucumber samples without and with different concentrations of diazinon residue were analyzed at the range of 450-1000 nm. Partial least squares (PLS) regression models were developed based on chemical reference measurements and the spectral information of the samples after performing different pre-processing methods. Moreover, partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) models were developed based on different spectral pre-processing techniques to classify cucumbers with contents of diazinon below and above the maximum residue limits (MRL) as safe and unsafe samples, respectively. Finally, user-friendly software as a GUI was created based on the best PLS and PLS-DA models developed for prediction of diazinon contents in the samples and for classification of intact cucumbers by the absence/presence of diazinon residues, respectively. Evaluation of the system and software designed based on the best developed PLS and PLS-DA models indicated good performance for measuring and detection of diazinon residue in cucumbers. It was concluded that the designed system and software based on Vis/NIR spectroscopy combined with chemometrics methods can be utilized for fast and non-destructive safety control of intact cucumbers by the absence/presence of diazinon residues. It can also be generalized for detection of other pesticide residues in agricultural products if developing their appropriate models is feasible.