Portable food safety detective promises rapid results
Local | 21 Sep 2018 7:02 pm
City University of Hong Kong researchers, working together with some mainland teams, have developed a new device that can detect decayed meat and contaminated seafood quickly and cheaply.
The portable device, which uses a nano chip, can relay the results in about 10 minutes to a mobile phone, while lab checks take about a day.
The sensor detects histamine which is formed when meat becomes stale, and formaldehyde which is a cancer-causing illegal additive used to make seafood appear fresh.
"Anyone can do it, just follow the procedure," said Dr Roy Vellaisamy, who headed the research at City University. "Super market chains, sushi/sashimi bars and all the big department stores, they all can check the food before they put it on the shelf."
The other members of the CityU research team are Professor Michael Lam Hon-wah from the Department of Chemistry, Senior Research Associate Yeung Chi-chung, and MSE PhD student Shishir Venkatesh.
The team, which was aided by a 20 million yuan fund from China's State Oceanic Administration, has already commissioned two companies to push this technology onto the market.
Vellaisamy told RTHK's Phoebe Ng that he expects the device to be cheap and effective.
