ISSUE FOCUS 36 FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE May 2023 The determination of moisture and ash is an important standard parameter in animal feed analysis. There are several possibilities to do this e.g., with traditional drying oven/muffle furnace methods or with NIR/NIT technology. One of the most common moisture determination methods is mass loss-ondrying or mass loss on ignition/combustion utilizing an air oven or a muffle furnace for ash determination. This technique involves recording the sample mass before and after exposure to an elevated temperature in an oven (typically ~ 105°C) with air ventilation for moisture. Ash is normally done at higher temperatures like 550°C or even up to 900/1000°C for some materials. After a certain time or after checking of the weight constancy the analysis is considered for being ready. The resulting sample mass loss is calculated and represents the moisture and/or ash content of the sample. In this article an automated moisture/ash determination system will be described that is using weight loss on drying/combustion method for the determination of moisture and ash. The LECO TGA 801 is a macro thermogravimetric analyzer that is widely used for the determination of moisture and ash content of food and feed. Nineteen (or thirty-eight) samples, with sample weights of up to 5 g can be analyzed simultaneously. Both parameters are analyzed in one run, just by running one step after the other. The system is fully automated, so only sample input must be done manually. The samples are weighed directly into a ceramic crucible, the crucible is in a sample carousel that moves every crucible sequentially onto a balance pedestal A fully automated method with high sample throughput for moisture and/or ash analysis by loss on weight principle… AUTOMATED MOISTURE/ASH DETERMINATION IN FEED Michael Jakob European Field Product Manager LECO Europe TGA 801 Crucible placed on the built in balance TGA 801
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