X-ray detection of bones

My company manufactures a chicken product derived from "boneless" chicken breasts. As a precaution we run all raw chicken breast through a pipeline x-ray system that is calibrated using a 0.8mm FE test ball. Still, due to chicken having soft, or thin bones, some get through the process due to their orientation through the pipeline. Is there a different test sample ball type that is recommended more for the detection of chicken bones?

  :welcome: .  I am not sure of the answer on this but hopefully someone will shortly. 

My first impulse would be to contact the manufacturer of the x-ray machine and show them the material that failed to be detected by the x-ray machine.  They may be able to adjust the parameters of the machine and help you select the best calibration standard to use.  For x-ray analysis, the strength of the radiation and how the machine analyzes the information is important, so it may just require a change in the sensitivity of the detection device or the analysis software.  At the very least, they should help find the right calibration material  for you since their equipment failed.

Martha

Thank you Martha,

I have no experience of x-ray detection but if it's bone you are looking for, shouldn't you be using a "bone" test stick/ball?

Shasha, this percolated in my brain, and I was wondering if you could make yourself a small object using hydroxyapatite as the material for the x-ray machine to detect.  Hydroxyapatite is a major component of bones, and contains the calcium that the x-rays detect.  I've seen that there are "phantoms" used to calibrate the x-rays used to assess bone density made of it, but those seem to be encased in something for the patient to lie on during the imaging.  So they would not work in a food application.  If you made something that you could use to adjust your machine, and then showed that you then could detect chicken bones in pieces of breast meat after that adjustment, then it would verify your protocol. 

It would be a better reference material than a metal object.

You could put it into a small test tube, like a 1.5 ml microcentrifuge tube, which would approximate a bone chip, maybe.

I would try running this past your machine's manufacturer and see what they say.

Let us know how you solve this, because my mind keeps :uhm:  chugging away on possible solutions. 

Martha

Martha,

  I really appreciate this input of trying a "hydroxyapatite" material. Although I am not familiar with this material myself I will ask with the X-ray manufacturer's tech to see if they believe a seed of this material may be created. Most of our test sieves as I'm sure you know is made of a plastic type material which is hollowed out and the actual detectable material placed inside. I would curious that this hydroxyapatite material may be less dense than the plastic thus if the machine is calibrated to detect the hydroxyapatite it could be actually be detecting the plastic instead. The test tube presents a similar problem. We currently have also tried a "glass" seed as well where a 1.0mm Glass "seed" is within that same type plastic ball. Let me do some research on this material. Thank you for the insight.

Shasha, hydroxyapatite has calcium in it, and will be significantly more x-ray dense than any plastic.  It's basically the molecule that has the calcium in it that is incorporated into bones.  And it's the calcium in bones that blocks the x-rays.

Let us know how it works, or if it doesn't.

Martha

Hi,

Dont want to over complicate matters but hopefully this will be helpful for you.

The issue with chicken bone is due to the age of the bird when it is killed where calciication in the bone structure is less. Therefore my thoughts are that whilst probably better than metal hydroxyapatite may also not be a representative sample.

Testing with actual bone is OK as long fresh samples are used, if the same bone is repeatadly used it dries very quickly and the reacts differently to the X-ray again and so again is not a repeatable or representative test.

My recommendation would be to look at either a ceramic or soda lime glass test sample making sure density of the samples used is in the 2.0g/cm3 up to 2.5g/cm3 density area. The test piece manufacturer (probably not the X-ray supplier) will be able to declare the actual densities of the pieces used.

This density is more reflective to the actual bone and allows a test procedure to be implemented with defined samples and defined sizes.

Test samples should be housed in a low density plastic that will not be detected by the X-ray system - the operation screen should be able to show the detection of the test sample as opposed to the housing material.

Hope this is some help.

Glen