feasibility study of x-ray absorption application as a non-destructive method for determining some qualitative parameters of pomegranate fruit

in the present study application of x-ray computed tomography as a nondestructive technique for estimation of some qualitative parameters of pomegranate fruit was studied. for this purpose, three local cultivars of pomegranate fruit of fars province, iran that included; rabab malas, rabab torsh and khani kazeroon were used. the x-ray ct images of pomegranate fruits were prepared using ct-scan device. corresponding ct numbers that indicate x-ray absorption value of objective were extracted using k-pacs software. the qualitative parameters such as anthocyanin, titratable acidity, soluble solids, taste index and ph of different pomegranate fruits were measured. relationships between qualitative parameters and the obtained ct numbers were evaluated using linear regression models. the results indicated that r2 for estimation of qualitative parameters for all models was more than 0.900. the ct number had positive correlation with titratable acidity and negative correlation with anthocyanin, soluble solids and ph for all pomegranate varieties. the relations for estimating the qualitative parameters of rabab malas variety showed the highest precision (0.971, 0.947, 0.963 and 0.946 for anthocyanin, soluble solids, titratable acidity and ph, respectively). the highest correlation was observed between the amount of anthocyanin and ct number for all pomegranate fruit cultivars (with coefficient of determination of 0.971, 0.943 and 0.960 for rabab malas, rabab torsh, khani kazeroon, respectively). overall results revealed that ct number can be applied as a useful index for estimation of qualitative parameters of pomegranate fruit especially for real-time sensing situations.