Abstract

In this study, water content in the mixture of methanol and ethanol was nondestructively measured by near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy. Two types of NIR instruments, portable NIR system with a photo-diode array and scanning type NIR spectrometer were used and the calibration results were compared. Partial least squares regression (PLSR) was applied for the calibration and validation for the quantitative analysis. The calibration results from both instruments showed good correlation with actual values. The calibration with the use of PLS model predicted water concentration with a standard error of prediction (SEP) of 0.10% and 0.12% for photo diode array and scanning type, respectively. During 6 days, routine analyses for 3%, 5% and 7% water in ethanol solution with 2% methanol were performed to validate the robustness of the developed calibration model. The routine analyses showed good results with coefficient of variation (CV) of within 3% for both types of NIR spectrometers. This study showed that the rapid determination of water in the mixture of methanol and ethanol was successfully performed by NIR spectroscopy and the performance of the portable NIR system with a photo diode array detector was comparable to that of the scanning type NIR spectrometer.