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VIS-NIR Instrument Product Offerings

    Forage Analyzer

    Grain Analyzer

    Turfgrass Analyzer

    Milk Analyzer

    Cheese & Meat Analyzer

    Liquid Manure Analyzer

Routine Operation Software

Calibration Software

Contact Information

Shenk Analytical International, LLC (SA-I) was founded by Dr. John S. Shenk and his son John William Shenk in 2008.  The purpose of this company is to offer to the food and agriculture industries a complete line of low-cost portable VIS-NIR instruments.  Dr. Shenk is Professor Emeritus of The Pennsylvania State University and founder of the Infrasoft International, LLC Software Company.  Dr. Shenk and his son have been active in the NIR industry since its beginning in the early 1970s.

After retiring from the University and the business world, Dr. Shenk and his son have decided to reenter the business world with their own low-cost, handheld VIS-NIR instrument package called AllStar.  They also developed a new software package called UniStar in conjunction with Unity Scientific.  This software package is state-of-the-art with graphics, product database structuring, and optimized PLS.  By combining UniStar with AllStar, they have developed a highly competitive product for the marketplace.

SA-I is introducing a new instrument into the market place.  It is the R1630.  This instrument contains a diode array scanning from 900 to 1630 nm.  The instrument has been calibrated for on-farm forage analysis.  The calibrations were developed for undried unground hay, haylage, and corn silage using actual samples from livestock feeding operations.  The accuracy and precision of the calibrations are as good as those we developed for the Foss 5000 in the 1990s.  This same instrument configuration has been used to analyze whole wheat, corn, and soybeans with a high level of accuracy.

The instrument pictured below consists of a small instrument case 4 ½  x 5 ½ x 3 inches in size and the analysis is carried out with a 36 inch fiber optic probe that contains the light source and sample viewing stage.  Scan time is 10 seconds for a sample.  Best analysis of a given 100 or more gram sample is 3 to 5 subsamples averaged.  The pictures below show a bench type operation but the picture at the far right shows that the instrument and probe are completely portable.  The system is battery powered or operated with 110/220.

We will provide more information and analytical statistics as time goes by.  We believe this instrument is a breakthrough for portable on-farm analysis.

              
            Analyzing haylage                         Analyzing whole wheat                 Operating in a portable mode