Amino acid testing with NIR a practical example Application note

Evonik produces amino acids for feed and has over 50 years experience of analysing amino acids, routinely testing around 15,000 samples a year. While wet chemistry reference methods remain the gold standard, rapid tests with NIR are increasingly important in delivering timely results to customers to help in the creation of the best possible diets.

In 1995, Evonik launched a service for testing amino acids based on NIR. Called Amino NIR, it took off and quickly expanded beyond the walls of the Evonik laboratory to include the supply of calibrations for customers’ own NIR instruments. The instruments are connected in a network with the Evonik laboratory at the hub. The network is growing constantly and now includes around 360 NIR instruments located in feed mills and analytical laboratories around the world.

The first calibrations were released in 1996 and today a wide range of tests cover 80% of feedstuffs in use. One of oldest is the 16-year-old soybean meal calibration, which is based on over 800 samples. “The growth in the use of the calibrations has been particularly strong in recent years,” says Payne. “We are seeing an almost ubiquitous acceptance of NIR for analysis of amino acids and recognition of the quality of our calibrations.”