Quality Control - Summer Student

The Summer Student (Intern) will work directly with the Laboratory Technician and will have additional support from the global quality control spectroscopy specialist. The Quality Control student will be engaged in a four-month project which will focus on developing a calibration curve for the unique peas that come into the plant. The activity will be based on samples and data from the product and will help create a profile that is unique to Roquette Canada.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES:

Sample collection:
• In collaboration with Technologist and Specialist: Identify sample to collect based on available infrared database and establish sampling plan

Chemical analysis
• Perform equipment verification / metrology before testing to guarantee accuracy of results
• Analyze samples to obtain so-called reference / chemical values such as:
o Loss on drying content using oven technics
o Protein content using dumas technology
o Starch content with enzymatic treatment of sample and glucose determination using UV spectrophotometer
o Fat content using acid hydrolysis followed by Soxhlet extraction

Near infrared acquisition
• Acquire analyzed samples on infrared devices with appropriate experiments
• Assign chemical values to spectra using software
• Archived collected data

Calibration infrared development
• Regularly evaluate the quality of collected data using chemometric software
• When enough samples are collected, optimize calibration by removing outliers

Calibration validation, comparison and implementation
• Write validation protocol and report to determine repeatability and reproducibility of calibrations
• Write comparison protocol and report to confirm accuracy of calibration based on external set of samples