Gerhardt Crude Fibre ADF / NDF Equipment

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Crude Fibre and Acid Hydrolysis System

FibreBag System 6 Place - FBS6

Fibretherm Fully Automated Fibre Analysis System FT12

The digestive system dissolves most elements of food and feed. However some components are resistant to digestion. This mainly consists of fibre.

Analytical methods have been developed to mimic this process in both humans and animals and resulted in a variety of methods.

Human fibre analysis methods are usually categorised as dietary fibre.

Animal fibre analysis is generally categorised as crude fibre. Crude fibre is an empirical method wherein the starch and sugars are removed by digestion in acid and the protein is removed by digestion in alkali. That which remains is a measure of crude fibre. It is not a measurement of cellulose, hemicelluloses or lignin. Further methods of fibre analysis on animal feed have been developed to mimic digestion within an animal more closely in an attempt to get more accurate energy information. These can be calculated using the determination of Acid Detergent Fibre (ADF), Neutral Detergent Fibre (NDF), Modified Acid Detergent Fibre (MADF) and lignin.

Gerhardt supply three different system types for crude fibre / ADF / NDF / MADF analysis, Fibrebag Systems, Fibretherm fully automated System and of course the Traditional system.

Fibrebag

This new system of analysis was developed to closely emulate official methods, but allow multiple extractions to be performed in each boiling vessel, thus saving time and chemicals. A bonus of the Fibrebag system was the discovery that filtration became easy and very quick compared to the traditional method. Filtration under vacuum and the problems that often occur have been eliminated. Throughput of tests per hour is increased by a factor of six and accuracy and precision are improved. Click here for more information.

Fibretherm

A further development of the Fibrebag method was the automation of the process. As well as automating the chemical additions, rinsing and filtration, increased sample throughput was achieved. Click here for more information.

Traditional

Traditional methods involve the digestion of food and feed with a range of acids, detergents or enzymes in beakers on a hotplate.

After a series of digestions the remainder is filtered and quantified to determine the fibre content. Analytically, the filtration step has usually caused the most difficulty, vacuums occasionally being used to improve speed.

Gerhardt have supplied these systems for many years.

Crude Fibre digestion system RF 16 is supplied either as a 4 or 6-place hotplate, beakers, condensers, filter funnels and funnel support stand. Click here for more information

For more information on the Crude Fibre / ADF / NDF methods - click here.