Application of near-infrared spectroscopy to agriculture and food analysis

Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) is the most rapidly developing and the most noticeable spectrographic technique in the 90's(the last century). Its principle and characteristics were explained in this paper, and the development of NIRS instrumentation, the methodology of spectrum pre-processing, as well as the chemical metrology were also introduced. The authors mainly summarized the applications to agriculture and food, especially in-line analysis methods, which have been used in production procedure by fiber optics. The authors analyzed the NIRS application status in China, and made the first proposal to establish information sharing mode between central database and end-user by using network technology and concentrating valuable resources.