AN EQUIPAMENT TO MEASURE WHITENESS AND TRANSPARENCY OF RICE

Resumen

This paper describes a low cost electronic equipment to measure the whiteness and transparency of rice grains. The rice whiteness and transparency determine the rice milling degree at plant and laboratory levels and product quality for consumers. The equipment improves the grain milling process and quality assessment and, therefore, decreases the typical losses of milling process. The electronics circuits can be divided in two separated parts: one for whiteness and other for transparency measurements of the milled rice; the resulting signals from these two circuits are processed and calculated into values representing the whiteness and transparency degrees percentage. Experimental results have demonstrated the good performance of the proposed equipment. Although it was developed for rice, this system can also be used to measure the whiteness and transparency of paper, sugar, salt and wheat flour.