Variables selection for quantitative determination of cotton content in textile blends by near infrared spectroscopy

•Variables selection was developed for analysis of textile blends by NIR spectroscopy.•MCUVE-SPA could separate irrelevant variables and improve model robustness.•Correlation coefficient and RMSEP of PLS model was 0.988 and of 2.100%.

Investigations were initiated to develop near infrared (NIR) techniques coupled with variables selection method to rapidly measure cotton content in blend fabrics of cotton and polyester. Multiplicative scatter correction (MSC), smooth, first derivative (1Der), second derivative (2Der) and their combination were employed to preprocess the spectra. Monte Carlo uninformative variables elimination (MCUVE), successive projections algorithm (SPA), and genetic algorithm (GA) were performed comparatively to choose characteristic variables associated with cotton content distributions. One hundred and thirty-five and fifty-nine samples were used to calibrate models and assess the performance of the models, respectively. Through comparing the performance of partial least squares (PLS) regression models with new samples, the optimal model of cotton content was obtained with spectral pretreatment method of 2 Der-Smooth-MSC and variables selection method of MCUVE-SPA-PLS. The correlation coefficient of prediction (rp) and root mean square errors of prediction (RMSEP) were 0.988% and 2.100%, respectively. The results suggest that NIR technique combining with variables selection method of MCUVE-SPA has significant potential to quantitatively analyze cotton content in blend fabrics of cotton and polyester; moreover, it could indicate the related spectral contributions.