SENSORS TO DETECT MILK ADULTERATION......

According to a recent research published in the Food Analytical Methods Journal, IIT Hyderabad has developed a sensor-chip based detector system to detect adulteration in milk. This helps to measure the pH levels of milk through an indicator paper that changes colour due to acidity of the milk. Currently, methods like chromatography and spectroscopy are used to detect milk adulteration, which are quite expensive, so the researchers at IIT used a relatively cost-effective process called ‘electrospinning’ to produce halochromic paper-like material made of nano- sized nylon fibres and loaded it with a combination of three dyes. They have also developed algorithms that can be incorporated on the mobile phones to accurately detect the colour change. The algorithm captured the colours of the sensor strips after dipping in milk using the mobile phone camera and the data was then transformed into pH ranges. On testing with milk spiked with various combinations of contaminants, they found near-perfect classification with accuracy of 99.71%. In order to get comprehensive milk quality check systems that can be incorporated in mobile phones or any other hand aids the team now aims to study the effects of mobile phone cameras and lighting on detection efficiency and hopes to develop sensors for other physical properties like conductivity and refractive index and integrate them with the pH detection unit.

SOURCE: www.timesnownews.com