(ORDO NEWS) — The original device uses salt, vegetable and fruit juices, and other food-safe ingredients, changing color if the product is thawed in storage and refrozen before being sold.
When buying products, it is not always possible to say how strictly the conditions for their storage and transportation were observed.
It is possible that they were thawed and refrozen before being sold, which can affect not only the taste and texture, but also the safety of eating such food.
An original approach to solving this problem was proposed by chemists from the Italian Institute of Technology.
Ivan Ilic (Ivan Ilic) and his colleagues have developed a sensor that signals the defrosting of food and is completely safe for the body, because it is made from common edible substances such as salt, fruit and vegetable juices, beeswax.
The demonstrated concepts change color when heated above a certain temperature, and depending on the specific set of components, this border can be set at different levels – from zero to minus 50 degrees Celsius.
The device is a galvanic cell that is filled with an electrolyte solution. This role can be played, for example, by a solution of table salt, grape or apple juice and other edible liquids saturated with salts.
Depending on their set, the temperature sensitivity of the system also changes. This cell is connected to the second, ionochromic, containing red cabbage juice.
To do this, use the thinnest tin and gold electrodes. Both the cells themselves and the entire system as a whole are placed in beeswax.
The researchers have already demonstrated the device in several prototypes in the lab.
Experiments have confirmed that when the electrolyte solution is defrosted, a weak current arises in the first cell, which enters the second, changing the color of the juice from red to bluish.
In the future, such sensors will allow employees of retail chains to monitor compliance with the storage conditions of incoming products, and customers to make sure that they are purchasing goods of proper quality and safety.
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