Abstract
IT is of interest, especially in milling, to know the water content of different parts of grains, such as wheat. This communication describes a new method which permits the measurement of the water content with relatively high accuracy in every point of a microscopic section. The method is based on changes in refractive index of the tissue by water. The section is immersed in indane, a liquid with refractive index (nD=1.537) similar to that of the dry tissue (nD=1.53) and photographed in an interference microscope (Leitz) adjusted to give fringes in the field. Afterwards, the preparation is completely dried in vacuo (0.1 mm mercury, 96° C, 3 h), re-immersed in the liquid and photographed again in the interference microscope. The shift of the interference fringes (Fig. 1) between the two photographs, ϕ1–ϕ2 (where ϕ, the optical retardation, = fringe distance × wave-length), enables the calculation of the water content in the following way: the amount of water per unit area mw is given by mw=d·ρ, where d is the optical path length of water and ρ its density (1.00), so that mw=d. Since the shift of the fringes: where ni is the refractive index of the immersion liquid and nw that of water.
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References
Davies, H. G., Wilkins, M. H. F., Chayen, J., and La Cour, L. F., Quart. J. Micro. Sci., 95, Pt. 3, 271 (1954).
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RUCH, F., BOSSHARD, U. & SAURER, W. Determination of Distribution of Water in Wheat Grains by Interference Microscopy. Nature 197, 1318–1319 (1963). https://doi.org/10.1038/1971318a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1971318a0
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