Real-time monitoring of alcalase hydrolysis of egg white protein using near infrared spectroscopy technique combined with efficient modeling algorithm

The degree of hydrolysis is one of the most important indexes for process control and quality assessment in proteins enzymatic hydrolysis. This article proposed a simple and rapid near infrared spectroscopy method for real-time quantifying the degree of hydrolysis in alcalase hydrolysis process. Efficient variables selection algorithms were systemically studied in multivariate calibrations; the partial least squares coupled with uninformative variables elimination and ant colony optimization were proposed for modeling with results yielding Rp = 0.9525. Additionally, 10 independent samples with the relative error less than 10% further confirmed the stability and reliability of this method. This work demonstrated that the near infrared spectroscopy technique with a selected multivariate calibration has a high potential for in situ monitoring of alcalase hydrolysis process in protein industry.