Browsing by Author "Hurtado Gallo, Alejandra"
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Item Factores que determinan la calidad de los granos de cacao y uso de la espectroscopia de infrarrojo cercano (NIRS) Como herramienta de Caracterización(Universidad Santiago de Cali, 2025) Hurtado Gallo, Alejandra; Ríos Acevedo, Jhon Jairo (Director)Currently, the cocoa production industry faces several challenges involving sustainability in both production and marketing, as various factors such as climate, technology, the proliferation of diseases, and lack of investment in improvement programs have created a conflict between demand and annual production. Additionally, the use of costly technologies like high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) for analyzing raw materials and finished products has left some small producers uncompetitive in the production chain. Other options, such as near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), promise to be a versatile tool with low operational costs and short response times. Furthermore, this technology does not require specialized personnel since analyses can be performed in situ without destroying the sample, which favors the development and competitiveness of small cocoa farmers. Studies in different scientific fields such as chemistry, medicine, and agriculture employ NIRS technology as a source of information for evaluating quality parameters. However, one of the main obstacles of this technique is the need to use standard reference methods for calibration and its low sensitivity when dealing with very small samples, in addition to the complexity of reading its spectra. Nevertheless, this technology relies on chemometric models to predict the quantity of a compound of interest. Additionally, to correct the effect of scattering in the data, vector normalization (SNV) is used, which occurs due to spectral differences in particle size of solid samples, as it minimizes baseline shift variations. The review addressed important topics about the application of near-infrared spectroscopy in cocoa production and how genetic variability influences the results. Moreover, results reported by various researchers show that the main changes in composition are not only related to the variety but also to the geographic area and climatic conditions. It is worth noting that most cocoa varieties correspond to hybrid species and that current studies do not focus on existing clones, since hybridization of cocoa seeds frequently occurs due to incompatible species during pollination. Furthermore, the opportunities and different challenges presented by this technique in agriculture are discussed, not only in cocoa production but also in other grains, with the ultimate goal of providing information on the findings of various authors in determining quality parameters using nearinfrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and its current status as an analytical tool.