What is NIR testing?
Near-Infrared (NIR) spectroscopy utilizes the reflective or transmissive properties of specific wavelengths of light (the near-infrared band) in a sample. The term for these properties across a range of wavelengths is spectra . The instrument for measuring these characteristics is called a spectrophotometer. It is possible to predict chemical or physical characteristics of a sample based on comparison of its spectra to the spectra of samples of known characteristics as determined by traditional laboratory reference methods. The NIR method is approved for analysis of many agricultural products and is much faster and less expensive than wet chemistry when many samples are to be evaluated. However, the startup costs for NIR are relatively high due to the technical nature of the equipment and the need for a calibration. The calibration, or model, merges the spectral and laboratory data of calibration samples in order to predict information about unknown samples. If the sample spectra are n
