How does Spectroscopy Identify Real or Fake Sneakers?

author: Susan

2022-02-16

How does Spectroscopy Identify Real or Fake Sneakers?

Counterfeit products cost businesses and consumers billions of dollars each year, and fake shoe manufacturers use the same materials and even the same technology as the original brand. Therefore, the identification of counterfeit products is becoming more and more difficult. How difficult is it to identify real and fake sneakers? How can we scientifically identify real and fake sneakers? Let me share with you how to use near-infrared spectroscopy to identify real and fake sneakers.

How to identify?
Near-infrared spectroscopy, as defined by the American Society for Testing and Materials, refers to light in the range of 780-2526 nm. When a beam of near-infrared light illuminates the textile, certain components in the textile will absorb the specific light, change the state of the molecule itself, and generate a near-infrared spectrum.

Compared with traditional component detection technology, near-infrared spectroscopy analysis technology has many advantages such as high efficiency, fast speed, and wide application range. To distinguish between real and fake shoes, manufacturers are using near-infrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopy and simple spectral data processing techniques to help a US certification company detect poor-quality materials in well-known brand sneakers costing more than $100 per pair.

Experimental System

In order to quickly detect certain parts of the shoe, and provide meaningful data. Connect the fiber ends of the reflection probe to the ATP8000 NIR spectrometer and light source ATG1002, respectively. Select the reflectance measurement mode in the free Optosky software, and use the reflectance standard whiteboard to establish a 100% reference spectrum.
Use a reflection probe to observe different areas of each sample in the inspected shoes (genuine and counterfeit mixed together) and save the resulting spectrum for analysis. We measured the shoe's rubber sole, leather exterior, tongue exterior, inner lining fabric, and even the laces.

Test Result
The NIR reflectance spectra of the rubber sole, white leather, and tongue are shown in the following figures, in order. We did detect some differences in the characteristic spectra between the samples, but the differences were too weak to be used to identify counterfeit products.

Interior Fabric
The spectrum is collected on the inner lining fabric, and the collection time is less than 1s. As can be seen from the graph below, there are several spectral regions where the differences are evident. At least for these high-end sneaker samples, the lining fabric (the blue thread) is the key to distinguishing genuine from counterfeit shoes.

Conclusion
Counterfeit goods affect everyone, and counterfeit shoes may be less of a problem than adulterated baby formula and counterfeit currency, but it can still devalue the brand and increase consumer prices. This paper preliminarily confirmed the feasibility of near-infrared spectroscopy to identify genuine and fake shoes.
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