Mettler Toledo: Improving Contaminant Detection with Dual Energy X-ray and Photon Counting

With certain products, food manufacturers can realise great benefits from using dual energy x-ray detection, especially when paired with advanced photon counting technology. Mike Pipe, Head of Product Inspection of Mettler-Toledo Product Inspection, explains how these technologies together can significantly improve both contaminant detection accuracy and overall business performance.

- Mike Pipe Head of Product Inspection UK and Ireland, Sales and New Business Development, Mettler Toledo

The detection of foreign body contaminants is part of the critical quality assurance process to improve food safety standards. X-ray inspection has long been a key technology in this process, but there are different types of X-ray detection with which food manufacturers can inspect their products, depending upon the nature of the application.

Traditionally, manufacturers have used single energy x-ray detectors, but dual-energy technology is becoming more commonplace and is more powerful, effective, and easy to use than ever before. It works using the concept of 'material discrimination', with dual x-ray beams of different energies able to identify materials of different densities. Advances in detection sensitivity mean that dual energy x-ray is now even more discerning, allowing ever-smaller contaminants to be detected in a wider range of applications.

Applications Suited to Dual Energy X-Ray

But what are the applications in which dual energy X-ray excels compared to the more commonplace single energy detection systems? In simple terms, there are two key aspects of a product that make it suitable for inspection by dual energy x-ray. The first is where there is a large degree of overlap within the package, or where there are variations in thickness. Examples of the types of packs where products overlap include packs of pasta, rice, nuts, and frozen goods such as French fries or potato wedges. Packs with variations in product thickness include chicken breasts and other fresh cuts of meat. Both scenarios produce an X-ray image with high levels of contrast.