Imperial academics have developed low-cost, smartphone-linked, eco-friendly spoilage sensors for meat and fish packaging.
07/03/2019
“Paper-based electrical gas sensors” (PEGS), detect spoilage gases like ammonia and trimethylamine in meat and fish products. So, they reduce food waste for supermarkets and consumers.
These new laboratory prototype sensors, developed at Imperial College London, cost two US cents each to make. PEGS are made of carbon electrodes printed onto readily available cellulose paper.
The materials are biodegradable and nontoxic, so they don’t harm the environment and are safe to use in food packaging. The sensors are combined with ‘near field communication (NFC)’ tags – a series of microchips that can be read by nearby mobile devices.
During laboratory testing on packaged fish and chicken, PEGS picked up trace amounts of spoilage gases quickly and more accurately than existing sensors, at a fraction of their price. |