Final Report Summary - OPTIMALT (A rapid and reliable tool for assessing the malting quality of barley using automated optical analysis)
Executive summary:
OPTIMALT was a three year applied research project, which commenced in December 2009 and finished in November 2012 and was funded under the research for small and medium sized enterprises' associations (Research for SME-AGs) programme of the European Commission's (EC) Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).
The results of the project will provide the malting barley chain with a novel malting quality (MQ) tool to replace the expensive, laborious and non-objective techniques currently used in the sector. Several optical inspection techniques have been researched to determine their potential for predicting MQ parameters. The OPTIMALT tool has been validated and demonstrated for use along the malting barley chain. Such tool has the potential to raise the quality of the European Union (EU) malting barley supply chain, safeguarding growth and employment in many rural economies across EU-27 and ensuring consistent quality in industries dependent on high quality malt.
Project context and objectives:
OPTIMALT was a three year applied research project, which commenced in December 2009 and finished in November 2012 and was funded under the 'Research for SME-AGs' programme of the EC's FP7.
The malting barley industry, from farm to glass, is an important contributor to the EU economy, providing countless jobs in barley cultivation and harvesting, barley malting, beer production, bottling and distribution. The potential annual market for European farmers is around 11 million tonnes of malting barley with around 3 million hectares of land used for growing it. Around 8.5 million tonnes of malt (40 % of the world total) are produced annually in the EU, which represents more than 70 % of a world trade in malt with around 2.1 million tonnes of malt exported annually. Europe is the number one producer of beer worldwide, with the number of microbreweries continuously increasing in recent years.
However, the sector needs tools for process control and quality assessment in order to better manage the quality of barley grain in the fields and in cooperatives, barley and also malt quality at the maltsters and finally in the breweries. During harvesting it is critical to classify barley grain that can fit the quality standards required for the malting process. Barley quality is assessed at cooperatives and at maltsters where a wide range of malting quality parameters determines the suitability of the malt for the brewing process. However, analysis of these malting quality parameters by traditional means requires sample preparation, proving time consuming, laborious and prone to human error, while offering no real-time data.
To this end, OPTIMALT project aimed to develop an affordable, reliable on-line tool for the rapid monitoring of malting quality parameters. Various optical inspection techniques, e.g. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), Raman, photo acoustic spectroscopy (PAS) and 'Machine Vision', were researched to determine their potential for predicting malt and malting barley quality parameters. The OPTIMALT system offers a novel MQ assessment tool to replace the expensive, laborious and non-objective standard analyses currently used by the sector. It consists of three different optical systems:
1. for growers the OPTIMALT harvester unit: an affordable at-line NIR system to measure protein content in a combine harvester
2. for malsters the OPTIMALT germination unit: an automated vision system for the determination of germination and
3. for malsters the OPTIMALT spectroscopic system: a collection of new spectroscopic applications for the rapid determination of malting quality parameters.
The OPTIMALT tool has been validated and demonstrated for use along the malting barley chain. Such tool has the potential to raise the quality of the EU malting barley supply chain, safeguarding growth and employment in many rural economies across EU-27 and ensuring consistent quality in industries dependent on high quality malt. Furthermore, the OPTIMALT systems could improve working conditions by doing away with time consuming and chemical-based sampling techniques. There are also environmental benefits associated with the OPTIMALT systems. Quality monitoring of barley will prevent batches unfit for malting from entering the malting processing chain. This will prevent the waste of energy, raw materials and resources.
Project results:
The first phase of the project focussed on defining the technological needs and aspirations of maltsters and malting barley growers. SME-AGs provided their expectations within the consortium and both the industry and research partners worked closely together to define the industrial specifications of the OPTIMALT systems. It was decided to work on the development of four different systems to meet the most pressing needs for improved measurement capability in the barley value chain:
1. for malsters: a machine vision based system to analyse germination index;
2. for malsters: chemometric methods to optically determine several new and relevant malt-quality parameters;
3. for farmers: a low-cost yet precise NIR method to measure protein content on-line on combine harvesters and
4. for farmers, grain dealers and malsters: a highly sensitive headspace gas analysis method based on FTIR-iPAS to detect and monitor fungus presence.
Following the industrial needs and system specifications the key MQ parameters of barley and malt in each step of the malting barley chain (crop breeders, malting barley growers, maltsters, brewers and distillers) were determined and defined within a second period of work. At this stage the delivery of barley, malt and intermediate product samples for calibration tests took place and 46 different barley samples were collected from across EU.
During the second phase of the project preliminary research on several inspection techniques took place at the laboratory scale. Different optical inspection techniques were tested including NIRS, image analysis by three-dimensional (3D) machine vision and pattern recognition techniques and FTIR/PAS, along with Raman spectroscopy and other additional optical techniques. Spectral measurements were carried out on barley samples collected by all partners. Malt samples were prepared with different malting programmes by different research and technological development (RTD) partners.
Results of this laboratory analysis confirmed that NIR spectroscopy was the most appropriate optical technique for analysis of barley grain quality and for many other MQ parameters, developed within the new spectroscopic techniques. A first test-rig version of the OPTIMALT system for harvesters was developed and tested. Scientific Based Calibration (SBC) theory was identified as the chemometric tool to predict the concentrations of nutrients of interest in barley based on the NIR spectra measured and adapted to the needs of the OPTIMALT system for harvesters. A first version of the Machine Vision unit for analysis of the germination of grains was developed at this stage.
Fungus appears in barley at very low concentrations (ppt and in best case lower ppb levels) and the detection is thus very challenging. Within a scientific study, several spectroscopic techniques for funguses detection were tested: Raman, IR, PAS and visible and near infrared (VIS/NIR) were tested on pure, solid fungus samples, which have a way higher fungus concentration as fungus on barley. In addition headspace measurements with FTIR photoacoustic and gas chromatography - mass spectrometry (GC-MS) were conducted on inoculated barley samples. However, no significant results could be achieved with none of the methods. Thus it was concluded that the FTIR/iPAS technology was not sufficient for fungus detection in barley samples.
During the third phase of the project, the selected inspection technologies were developed into a pre-competitive OPTIMALT prototype capable of carrying out a series of measurements tailored and well suited for each level of user along the malting barley chain. The laboratory OPTIMALT germination automated vision system and the OPTIMALT at-line NIR system for harvesters were scaled-up to build two pre-competitive prototype systems. To ensure the future exploitation and uptake of the OPTIMALT systems, designs were made such that the systems were sufficiently low cost.
The three resulting OPTIMALT systems have been validated in the industry:
1. The new spectroscopic methods have been validated using different NIR laboratory instruments, barley samples and malting programmes.
2. The OPTIMALT germination vision system was installed during seven months and validated in the Viking malt facilities, a malting company member of KMY Association.
3. The OPTIMALT harvester system was installed in JP's farm in the combine harvester during the 2012 harvest in Finland.
Given that this project delivered a pre-competitive prototype system, post project development work would be needed to industrialise the two precompetitive outputs into commercial systems that would be market exploitable. The Consortium is confident that there is potential for developing an affordable instrument for quantifying protein on-line in grain in the combine harvester. The OPTIMALT germination vision system has demonstrated potential to quantify the germination index and calibre of grains. Post project development work will be needed in order to develop a commercially exploitable system.
The new spectroscopic methods developed and validated during the project have proven to be a very useful tool for determination of malt quality parameters directly in barley grain and to replace several laborious reference methods. The system is able to detect the total content for barley and malt, of amino acids, valine, isoleucine, lynoleic acid, dimethyl sulphide (DMS) and nitrosamines. It is also able to measure traditional parameters such as protein, moisture, extract, soluble nitrogen, friability and FAN using barley grains directly. The Consortium is in contact with the relevant standardisation organisms.
Potential impact:
The OPTIMALT system offers a novel MQ assessment tool to replace the expensive, laborious and non-objective standard analyses currently used by the sector. It consists of three different optical systems:
1. for growers the OPTIMALT harvester unit: an affordable at-line NIR system to measure protein content in a combine harvester
2. for malsters the OPTIMALT germination unit: an automated vision system for the determination of germination and
3. for malsters the OPTIMALT spectroscopic system: a collection of new spectroscopic applications for the rapid determination of malting quality parameters.
The project partners are confident that the results of the project will assist in malt and malting barley quality analysis. Central to the expected socio-economic impacts, is the boosting of the competitiveness of companies operating along the malting barley chain- from farm to glass- by improving the availability and quality of European malting barley. Europe is the number one producer of beer worldwide, with almost 4 000 breweries in Europe and the number of microbreweries continuously increasing in recent years. Directly and indirectly, 2.5 million jobs can be accredited to the production and sale of beer. If we consider the entire malting barley chain, then the impacts for the European economy, growth and jobs are accentuated.
In addition, to raising competitiveness along the malting barley chain, significant socio-economic benefits will be derived for the European consumers as a result of better quality beers. This heightened quality, if well communicated to consumers will increase consumer confidence and demand for European beer, which will translate into a competitive advantage for European malting barley cultivators and processors, leading to increased productivity and growth. This will ultimately safeguard employment and job creation, especially in rural communities where barley cultivation and processing constitute a significant share of business activity in many regions.
Furthermore, the OPTIMALT systems could improve working conditions by doing away with time consuming and chemical-based sampling techniques. There are also environmental benefits associated with the OPTIMALT systems. Quality monitoring of barley will prevent batches unfit for malting from entering the malting processing chain. This will prevent the waste of energy, raw materials and resources.
Intellectual property rights (IPR) and exploitation of the results by the SMEs and SME-AGs
Validation and industry trials have been accompanied by demonstration and training activities to the malting barley industrial partners. All these activities have been accompanied by discussions and actions aimed at properly protecting the Intellectual Property and developing a suitable and business plan for the exploitation of results. In particular, although insufficient novelty prevented the partners from patenting the OPTIMALT project results, the know-how that allows a competitive edge to the project partners will be protected by their continued treatment with utmost confidentiality. Some parts of the OPTIMALT results could be licensed and kept as trade secret.
Dissemination of the results
Non-confidential information on the results and principles of the OPTIMALT technology has been successfully disseminated during the duration of the project. The public website of the project (see http://www.optimalt.eu online) informs the public and any interested parties about the basics of the technology, features the press releases, news and the publishable version of the project results via an on-line training tool. A variety of press releases were successfully circulated in newspapers, magazines and professional malting and barley related magazines and websites, raising awareness of OPTIMALT both in industry and in the public domain. OPTIMALT has been presented at a high number of trade shows and conferences. SME-AG partners have continuously spread the results of the projects to their members and many face-to-face dissemination events have taken place. The interest and feedback generated by successful dissemination activities highlight the present demand in industry for innovative technology as well as industry's willingness to invest in such innovations.
Project website: http://www.optimalt.eu
For further information please contact:
Dr Mirta R. Pinilla
Innovació i Recerca Industrial i Sostenible
Avda Carl Friedrich Gauss
08860 Castelldefels
Barcelona
Spain
The OPTIMALT logo, factsheet and brochure can be downloaded from the project website. On-line training material can also be consulted on the site.
OPTIMALT was a three year applied research project, which commenced in December 2009 and finished in November 2012 and was funded under the research for small and medium sized enterprises' associations (Research for SME-AGs) programme of the European Commission's (EC) Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).
The results of the project will provide the malting barley chain with a novel malting quality (MQ) tool to replace the expensive, laborious and non-objective techniques currently used in the sector. Several optical inspection techniques have been researched to determine their potential for predicting MQ parameters. The OPTIMALT tool has been validated and demonstrated for use along the malting barley chain. Such tool has the potential to raise the quality of the European Union (EU) malting barley supply chain, safeguarding growth and employment in many rural economies across EU-27 and ensuring consistent quality in industries dependent on high quality malt.
Project context and objectives:
OPTIMALT was a three year applied research project, which commenced in December 2009 and finished in November 2012 and was funded under the 'Research for SME-AGs' programme of the EC's FP7.
The malting barley industry, from farm to glass, is an important contributor to the EU economy, providing countless jobs in barley cultivation and harvesting, barley malting, beer production, bottling and distribution. The potential annual market for European farmers is around 11 million tonnes of malting barley with around 3 million hectares of land used for growing it. Around 8.5 million tonnes of malt (40 % of the world total) are produced annually in the EU, which represents more than 70 % of a world trade in malt with around 2.1 million tonnes of malt exported annually. Europe is the number one producer of beer worldwide, with the number of microbreweries continuously increasing in recent years.
However, the sector needs tools for process control and quality assessment in order to better manage the quality of barley grain in the fields and in cooperatives, barley and also malt quality at the maltsters and finally in the breweries. During harvesting it is critical to classify barley grain that can fit the quality standards required for the malting process. Barley quality is assessed at cooperatives and at maltsters where a wide range of malting quality parameters determines the suitability of the malt for the brewing process. However, analysis of these malting quality parameters by traditional means requires sample preparation, proving time consuming, laborious and prone to human error, while offering no real-time data.
To this end, OPTIMALT project aimed to develop an affordable, reliable on-line tool for the rapid monitoring of malting quality parameters. Various optical inspection techniques, e.g. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), Raman, photo acoustic spectroscopy (PAS) and 'Machine Vision', were researched to determine their potential for predicting malt and malting barley quality parameters. The OPTIMALT system offers a novel MQ assessment tool to replace the expensive, laborious and non-objective standard analyses currently used by the sector. It consists of three different optical systems:
1. for growers the OPTIMALT harvester unit: an affordable at-line NIR system to measure protein content in a combine harvester
2. for malsters the OPTIMALT germination unit: an automated vision system for the determination of germination and
3. for malsters the OPTIMALT spectroscopic system: a collection of new spectroscopic applications for the rapid determination of malting quality parameters.
The OPTIMALT tool has been validated and demonstrated for use along the malting barley chain. Such tool has the potential to raise the quality of the EU malting barley supply chain, safeguarding growth and employment in many rural economies across EU-27 and ensuring consistent quality in industries dependent on high quality malt. Furthermore, the OPTIMALT systems could improve working conditions by doing away with time consuming and chemical-based sampling techniques. There are also environmental benefits associated with the OPTIMALT systems. Quality monitoring of barley will prevent batches unfit for malting from entering the malting processing chain. This will prevent the waste of energy, raw materials and resources.
Project results:
The first phase of the project focussed on defining the technological needs and aspirations of maltsters and malting barley growers. SME-AGs provided their expectations within the consortium and both the industry and research partners worked closely together to define the industrial specifications of the OPTIMALT systems. It was decided to work on the development of four different systems to meet the most pressing needs for improved measurement capability in the barley value chain:
1. for malsters: a machine vision based system to analyse germination index;
2. for malsters: chemometric methods to optically determine several new and relevant malt-quality parameters;
3. for farmers: a low-cost yet precise NIR method to measure protein content on-line on combine harvesters and
4. for farmers, grain dealers and malsters: a highly sensitive headspace gas analysis method based on FTIR-iPAS to detect and monitor fungus presence.
Following the industrial needs and system specifications the key MQ parameters of barley and malt in each step of the malting barley chain (crop breeders, malting barley growers, maltsters, brewers and distillers) were determined and defined within a second period of work. At this stage the delivery of barley, malt and intermediate product samples for calibration tests took place and 46 different barley samples were collected from across EU.
During the second phase of the project preliminary research on several inspection techniques took place at the laboratory scale. Different optical inspection techniques were tested including NIRS, image analysis by three-dimensional (3D) machine vision and pattern recognition techniques and FTIR/PAS, along with Raman spectroscopy and other additional optical techniques. Spectral measurements were carried out on barley samples collected by all partners. Malt samples were prepared with different malting programmes by different research and technological development (RTD) partners.
Results of this laboratory analysis confirmed that NIR spectroscopy was the most appropriate optical technique for analysis of barley grain quality and for many other MQ parameters, developed within the new spectroscopic techniques. A first test-rig version of the OPTIMALT system for harvesters was developed and tested. Scientific Based Calibration (SBC) theory was identified as the chemometric tool to predict the concentrations of nutrients of interest in barley based on the NIR spectra measured and adapted to the needs of the OPTIMALT system for harvesters. A first version of the Machine Vision unit for analysis of the germination of grains was developed at this stage.
Fungus appears in barley at very low concentrations (ppt and in best case lower ppb levels) and the detection is thus very challenging. Within a scientific study, several spectroscopic techniques for funguses detection were tested: Raman, IR, PAS and visible and near infrared (VIS/NIR) were tested on pure, solid fungus samples, which have a way higher fungus concentration as fungus on barley. In addition headspace measurements with FTIR photoacoustic and gas chromatography - mass spectrometry (GC-MS) were conducted on inoculated barley samples. However, no significant results could be achieved with none of the methods. Thus it was concluded that the FTIR/iPAS technology was not sufficient for fungus detection in barley samples.
During the third phase of the project, the selected inspection technologies were developed into a pre-competitive OPTIMALT prototype capable of carrying out a series of measurements tailored and well suited for each level of user along the malting barley chain. The laboratory OPTIMALT germination automated vision system and the OPTIMALT at-line NIR system for harvesters were scaled-up to build two pre-competitive prototype systems. To ensure the future exploitation and uptake of the OPTIMALT systems, designs were made such that the systems were sufficiently low cost.
The three resulting OPTIMALT systems have been validated in the industry:
1. The new spectroscopic methods have been validated using different NIR laboratory instruments, barley samples and malting programmes.
2. The OPTIMALT germination vision system was installed during seven months and validated in the Viking malt facilities, a malting company member of KMY Association.
3. The OPTIMALT harvester system was installed in JP's farm in the combine harvester during the 2012 harvest in Finland.
Given that this project delivered a pre-competitive prototype system, post project development work would be needed to industrialise the two precompetitive outputs into commercial systems that would be market exploitable. The Consortium is confident that there is potential for developing an affordable instrument for quantifying protein on-line in grain in the combine harvester. The OPTIMALT germination vision system has demonstrated potential to quantify the germination index and calibre of grains. Post project development work will be needed in order to develop a commercially exploitable system.
The new spectroscopic methods developed and validated during the project have proven to be a very useful tool for determination of malt quality parameters directly in barley grain and to replace several laborious reference methods. The system is able to detect the total content for barley and malt, of amino acids, valine, isoleucine, lynoleic acid, dimethyl sulphide (DMS) and nitrosamines. It is also able to measure traditional parameters such as protein, moisture, extract, soluble nitrogen, friability and FAN using barley grains directly. The Consortium is in contact with the relevant standardisation organisms.
Potential impact:
The OPTIMALT system offers a novel MQ assessment tool to replace the expensive, laborious and non-objective standard analyses currently used by the sector. It consists of three different optical systems:
1. for growers the OPTIMALT harvester unit: an affordable at-line NIR system to measure protein content in a combine harvester
2. for malsters the OPTIMALT germination unit: an automated vision system for the determination of germination and
3. for malsters the OPTIMALT spectroscopic system: a collection of new spectroscopic applications for the rapid determination of malting quality parameters.
The project partners are confident that the results of the project will assist in malt and malting barley quality analysis. Central to the expected socio-economic impacts, is the boosting of the competitiveness of companies operating along the malting barley chain- from farm to glass- by improving the availability and quality of European malting barley. Europe is the number one producer of beer worldwide, with almost 4 000 breweries in Europe and the number of microbreweries continuously increasing in recent years. Directly and indirectly, 2.5 million jobs can be accredited to the production and sale of beer. If we consider the entire malting barley chain, then the impacts for the European economy, growth and jobs are accentuated.
In addition, to raising competitiveness along the malting barley chain, significant socio-economic benefits will be derived for the European consumers as a result of better quality beers. This heightened quality, if well communicated to consumers will increase consumer confidence and demand for European beer, which will translate into a competitive advantage for European malting barley cultivators and processors, leading to increased productivity and growth. This will ultimately safeguard employment and job creation, especially in rural communities where barley cultivation and processing constitute a significant share of business activity in many regions.
Furthermore, the OPTIMALT systems could improve working conditions by doing away with time consuming and chemical-based sampling techniques. There are also environmental benefits associated with the OPTIMALT systems. Quality monitoring of barley will prevent batches unfit for malting from entering the malting processing chain. This will prevent the waste of energy, raw materials and resources.
Intellectual property rights (IPR) and exploitation of the results by the SMEs and SME-AGs
Validation and industry trials have been accompanied by demonstration and training activities to the malting barley industrial partners. All these activities have been accompanied by discussions and actions aimed at properly protecting the Intellectual Property and developing a suitable and business plan for the exploitation of results. In particular, although insufficient novelty prevented the partners from patenting the OPTIMALT project results, the know-how that allows a competitive edge to the project partners will be protected by their continued treatment with utmost confidentiality. Some parts of the OPTIMALT results could be licensed and kept as trade secret.
Dissemination of the results
Non-confidential information on the results and principles of the OPTIMALT technology has been successfully disseminated during the duration of the project. The public website of the project (see http://www.optimalt.eu online) informs the public and any interested parties about the basics of the technology, features the press releases, news and the publishable version of the project results via an on-line training tool. A variety of press releases were successfully circulated in newspapers, magazines and professional malting and barley related magazines and websites, raising awareness of OPTIMALT both in industry and in the public domain. OPTIMALT has been presented at a high number of trade shows and conferences. SME-AG partners have continuously spread the results of the projects to their members and many face-to-face dissemination events have taken place. The interest and feedback generated by successful dissemination activities highlight the present demand in industry for innovative technology as well as industry's willingness to invest in such innovations.
Project website: http://www.optimalt.eu
For further information please contact:
Dr Mirta R. Pinilla
Innovació i Recerca Industrial i Sostenible
Avda Carl Friedrich Gauss
08860 Castelldefels
Barcelona
Spain
The OPTIMALT logo, factsheet and brochure can be downloaded from the project website. On-line training material can also be consulted on the site.
