Rapid analyses of oil and fat content in agri-food products using continuous wave free precession time domain NMR.

Time-domain nuclear magnetic resonance (TD-NMR) is one of the most popular solutions for quality control in the food industry. Despite the recognized success of TD-NMR in quality control and quality assurance, the speed by which samples can be characterized by TD-NMR techniques is still a concern, primarily when considering online or high-throughput applications. Therefore, to enhance the speed of TD-NMR analysis, we developed rapid methods based on steady-state free precession of nuclear spins, which we denoted continuous wave free precession (CWFP). CWFP substantially increases the sensitivity of TD-NMR compared with free induction decay or spin-echo detection, which are traditionally used. The objective of this paper was to present the physical background of CWFP and review its recent developments and applications in fat and oil quantifications in agri-food products.