About our group

Biospectroscopy at Nofima

Since the late 1970’s and the development of near-infrared spectroscopy and chemometrics, biospectroscopy and data modelling have been strategic research activities at Nofima. As the technologies have developed, the application ranges have increased together with the expansion of the methodological platform. Thus, today, the biospectroscopy platform at Nofima in Ås is versatile comprising near-infrared spectroscopy, iInfrared spectroscopy and infrared microspectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy and Raman microspectroscopy, fluorescence, and LF NMR. Multispectral imaging is also an important part of the platform.

The food industry has an ever increasing need for increasing production efficiency, optimizing the utilization of raw materials, reducing wastage and improving product quality. Rapid, non-destructive measuring techniques are thus increasingly being used on production lines for quality control, process optimization and process management. Thus, for our strategic research program, the main aim is to improve processing efficiency, optimize raw material usages and increase profitability in the food industry by development of novel spectroscopic and spectral imaging techniques for monitoring, understanding and optimization of food quality and food processing. This includes the following subgoals:

  • Improved characterisation of food products, biological tissue and microorganisms
  • Characterisation and documentation of biological metabolism
  • Novel methods for mapping internal properties of foods
  • New strategies for on-line monitoring by spectral imaging
  • Optimisation of pre-processing in spectroscopy
  • Development of calibration and validation strategies for spectral imaging systems
  • Effective characterization of phenotypes in biological systems

Currently our research group comprises about 13 members, including research scientists, engineers, post docs and PhD students. The group has an interdisciplinary approach, and the backgrounds of the members range from chemometrics and physics to chemistry, microbiology and food science. The work in the group is also strongly overlapping with the data modelling research performed in Nofima.