Instrument Room

This shared space between the Food Science and Applied Plant Science programs houses and maintains sophisticated instrumentation in a protected clean environment, and offers analytical support to courses (Intro to Food Science, Food Chemistry, Food Analysis, Food/Dairy Processing, Food Product Development, etc.) and student mentored research activities. To view more photos of the product development and other facilities click here.

Featured Facilities 

• Texture Technologies Texture Analyzer (TA.XTPlus): Provides a measure of food textural characteristics using a variety of application-specific probes and geometries (three-point bend; Warner-Bratzler knife (meat tenderness); spreadability rig; cone, cylinder and puncture probes; knife blade (noodles), etc.
• LECO Nitrogen Combustion Analyzer: Measures the protein content of liquid or dry foodstuffs (3-4 minute run time), and is a recognized official method for food labeling purposes.
• Newport Scientific Rapid Visco Analyzer (RVA): Generates a functional viscosity profile of starch containing materials (isolated starches; modified starches; potato flakes, granules, and products; cereal grains; flours; etc.) over the course of a defined heating/cooling regime.
• Agilent 1260 Infinity II Quaternary HPLC (with diode array, refractive index, fluorescence detectors): Provides separation and quantification of individual chemical constituents (e.g., vitamin C, acrylamide, caffeine, sugars, etc.) within a complex food extract or mixture to quantify their respective amounts within a given food.
• TA Instruments Differential Scanning Calorimeter (Discovery DSC25): Detects and measures thermal transitions within food systems related to water (ice melting/crystallization,) starch (gelatinization/retrogradation), lipids (melting/crystallization), proteins (denaturation), etc.
• Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (Thermo Fisher): Assays the mineral analysis of foodstuffs (Na, K, Ca, etc.).

TA Instrument Discovery DSC

Agilent High Performance Liquid Chromatograph (HPLC)