Nanosensor with potential food safety use comes step closer

Nanosensor developed by Nosang Myung. Picture copyright: University of California Riverside

A nanosensor that can detect airborne toxins in the food supply chain is to be further refined in a bid for commercial launch.

Nosang Myung, a professor at the University of California Riverside Bourns College of Engineering, is working with Nano Engineered Applications, (NEA), an ieCrowd Company.

The company signed a multi-year and multi-phase product development and distribution agreement with an unnamed collaborator.

It is the first time the sensor will be customized for food safety and potency measurements, for detection of airborne substances including pesticides.

Depending on the end application it is designed to be incorporated in three platforms: a handheld device, a wearable device and in a smart phone.

Key to the prototype is the nanosensor array that Myung started developing eight years ago.

Airborne substance detection

His research involves a nanosensor array that can detect small quantities of harmful airborne substances. It uses functionalized carbon nanotubes, which are 100,000 times finer than human hair, to detect airborne toxins down to the parts per billion (ppb) level.

The goal is to make it the size of a credit card so the multi-channel sensor would be able to detect up to eight toxins. A single-channel sensor device could be the size of a fingernail.

The agreement calls for the development of products and a testing platform capable of detecting specific volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released by plants when heated to specific temperatures.

It aims to establish efficacy of NEA’s sensors with these volatile organic compounds; and second, should phase one be successful, develop hand-held products to detect volatile organic compounds.

Measure pesticides

“This collaboration will, when successful, usher in a new era of transparency and efficiency for measuring the level of pesticides and other chemicals in plants we use for food and medicine,” said Stephen F. Abbott, president of NEA.

“Our work will also make the technology available to a broad number of applications that are important for a range of new and existing industries globally.”

A prototype of the device contained a computer chip, USB ports, and temperature and humidity sensors.

Version two of the prototype was muted to integrate a GPS device and a Bluetooth unit to sync it with a smart phone and Wi-Fi capabilities are being looked at.

The device also has potential applications in industrial sites (detecting gas leaks, combustion emissions), homeland security (warning systems for bio-terrorism) and the military (detecting chemical warfare agents).