Researchers create sensor that identifies if a food has spoiled

Who has never had that unpleasant surprise of opening a milk carton and finding that it is damaged - or worse, to notice that it has expired when it is too late? Well, that should no longer happen if it depends on new technology developed by a group of researchers at Berkley University and Chiao Tung National University in Taiwan.

Unfortunately, we are not talking about a solution to prevent milk from spoiling, but rather a way of knowing when milk (or rather any food) is no longer fit for human consumption. To this end, the team has developed a "smart cap" that, according to a report in the journal Nature, is able to detect chemical changes caused by bacteria when it comes in contact with the liquid.

Developing something like this into something as small as a packing cap or a bottle cap is quite a complex task, of course. Therefore, the entire system was built with the help of 3D printed components. The detector itself does not give a visual warning that the food has spoiled; Instead, you should use a mobile device to make a wireless connection through an app and check if the food is good or not.

If, on the one hand, this means that the whole process is a bit laborious, this is still a much faster way to analyze the quality of a food and to avoid regrets when shopping comes. So don't be surprised if, in a few years, people in the markets seem to be taking pictures of every product that lies ahead.

Finally, it should be noted that this is not the first time developers have come up with such an answer to make it easier to identify when a food (or even another product) goes bad. As we also commented in 2014, a group of MIT researchers was able to develop a very similar concept, which used a special label capable of detecting harmful gases. It now remains to know which of the two will reach the market first.

Via TecMundo.