Misa - A New, Portable Food Analysis System: Protecting Consumers with the Latest in Food Testing Technology

摘要

Industrial dyes used in brightly colored candies, pesticide residues on fruits and vegetables, pharmaceuticals illegally added to herbal medicines - Contamination of food products is a global problem, whether it is done intentionally for profit or accidentally through negligence, the end result is the same - consumers pay the price. The problem of food contaminations can be addressed with complex analytical laboratory techniques such as GC-MS and HPLC, but time, skill, and cost requirements limits their usage to the confines of well-equipped laboratories. Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) - an extension of Raman spectroscopy - permits detection and identification of analytes in concentrations as low as parts per billion. Food analysis with SERS can be fast, convenient, and inexpensive.