POLLID

Pollen is a valuable natural resource for active agents, which is collected by bees in a natural way. To use the pollen a processing (sorting) is necessary. The project deals with the basics of the identification and separation of bee-collected pollen.

Short Description

Status

completed

Motivation

Bee pollen is a valuable natural product with a multitude of applications in medicine and pharmacy but also as an adjunct for food. The exact effect on humans is the subject of research work in Austria but also abroad.

In order to use the pollen in these fields, pollen with a high purity is required (pollen from clearly defined species).

Up to now only mixed pollen is available. This is pollen is derived from many different plant species. The reason is the lack of a method to harvest a sufficient amount of pollen and a method to sort the pollen with purity higher than 90%.

Goal

The goal of the project is to develop a method to sort the pollen. For this purpose, it is necessary to find a method to identify the sort of the pollen in the lumps and to develop mathematical methods to process the sensor data and to classify the pollen.

Methods

Development of a recording technique for the pollen and the characterisation of the surface of the pollen
Test of the sensor with a sample of pollen
Development of a sorting prototype with the new sensor system and existing mechanics.
Development and implementation of classification algorithms for the processing of the sensor signals and for the separation of the pollen.

Results

The spectral analysis of representative pollen showed that discrimination in the range of the visible light is possible and that information in the range of the infrared and ultraviolet light brings no additional information that can help to distinguish the pollen. Therefore, a sensor system using visible light was selected.
A sensor prototype was built to transport the pollen for the acquisition of signals from the sensor.
With this test environment, test samples of pollen that were sorted in the bee institute in Lunz am See have been analysed to determine the characteristics of the sensor system.

Project Partners

Project manager

Ing. Kurt Gartlehner
Hessenplatz 3/1/7, A-4400 Steyr
Tel.: +43 (664) 2114703
Fax: +43 (7252) 47581
E-Mail: k.gartlehner@austriaconsult.at

Unternehmen

Austria Consult
Hessenplatz 3/1/7, A-4400 Steyr
Tel.: +43 (664) 2114703
Fax: +43 (7252) 47581
E-Mail: office@austriaconsult.at

Project partners

Profactor Produktionsforschungs GmbH
Wehrgrabengasse 1-5, A-4400 Steyr
Tel.: +43 (7252) 884 200
Fax: +43 (7252) 884 244
E-Mail: sekretariat@profactor.at
Internet: http://www.profactor.at/

IH-Tech Instandhaltungs GmbH
Kleinramingerstraße 2c, A-4400 Steyr
Tel.: +43 (7252) 81393-0
Fax: +43 (7252) 81393-40
E-Mail: g.kopf@ihtech.at
Internet: http://www.ihtech.at/

Richter Pharma AG
Feldgasse 19, A-4600 Wels
Tel.: +43 (7242) 490-0
Fax: +43 (7242) 490-17
E-Mail: office@richter-pharma.at