Resumen de Determination of loss on drying or consistency of opium samples using microwave ovens
S. Banerjee, A. Agnihotri, G. Das, R.S. Chouhan, V. Harit
A rapid method for estimating moisture in opium samples was being looked for to enable rapid payment to Indian opium cultivators. Efforts were made to replace the traditional “hand parakh” system and conventional oven method with a method that would provide rapid, simple, precise and reproducible results. A large number of techniques commonly used for the estimation of moisture in agricultural produce were tried, such as near infra-red spectrometry, low resolution pulsed nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry, dielectric constant, time domain reflectometry and even instruments based on density measurements. Infra-red moisture balances were also tried. None of these techniques, however, yielded satisfactory results in regard to opium. Finally, the estimation of loss on drying was resorted to through the use of a microwave oven with a turntable facility. Results obtained with the microwave oven were within the acceptable limit, with a maximum standard deviation of only ±0.28, compared with the standard electric oven method.
