A few years from now, the ritual of going to a fishmonger to check the freshness of the products on display may face stiff scientific competition. And it won’t be long before we have all the information about food freshness. Not only will you know if the stall’s tempting sea bass was caught yesterday, but if the cold chain is broken at any time. The technology to achieve such levels of surveillance could be based on microsensors developed by a group of Swiss researchers.
ETH Zurich, a historic university research center founded in 1885, has developed a microsensor prototype that achieves an extremely thin thickness of 16 micrometers, five to ten times thinner than a human hair. . any health risk. The key is its biodegradable and biocompatible material. Using an electric filament made of magnesium, silicon dioxide and nitrides encapsulated in a compostable polymer, a team led by Giovanni Salvatore has developed a technique that dissolves without leaving a trace in days. bottom. But while the hours are short, they have the potential to revolutionize the way food is processed, transported and distributed.
Salvatore announced his contribution in Advanced functional materials The magazine, along with a group of researchers, show the potential of the technology with fish transport. A new microsensor can be used to check whether fish brought all the way from Japan to Europe maintain the right temperature throughout the journey. When the goods arrive at their destination, the microsensors send a kind of logbook about the cold chain. The sensor is then completely disassembled during the final stage of the fish’s journey from boat to plate. At its current width, the sensor can continue to operate for a whole day, but increasing the thickness of the polymer allows for greater autonomy. It can be folded and extended.
It now uses micro-batteries attached via ultra-thin, biodegradable cables. The system has its own processing unit that transmits all temperature data via Bluetooth. But with ETH, they are already working on an integrated biodegradable power source that will soon be able to do without such an external unit.
Fish are just the beginning of the microsensor era
Biodegradable microsensors can be used not only for fish, but also for perishable foods such as fruits and vegetables. In the long term, we can also foresee this technology providing information on maturity by measuring the gases emitted in the process, as these smart labels already do. It helps improve food safety, but it also helps manage resources in a more efficient and rational way.
As you can see, even groceries cannot escape the ecosystem of connected devices introduced in the post-PC era. This means that the world will become digitally hyper-connected even at the microscopic level.
sauce: science daily
