Portable Optoelectronic Nose for Monitoring Meat Freshness

A disposable colorimetric sensor array (CSA) made from printing various chemically responsive dyes was combined with a hand-held device for on-site assessment and monitoring of the freshness of five meat products: beef, chicken, fish, pork, and shrimp. The hand-held device takes advantage of an on-board diaphragm micropump and a commercial 1D CMOS camera (CIS) which enables the real-time collection of colorimetric data. The sensor array shows excellent sensitivity to gaseous analytes, especially amines and sulfides at low ppb levels; excellent discrimination among meat volatiles in terms of meat type and storage time was demonstrated with multiple chemometric approaches including principle component analysis, hierarchical cluster analysis, and support vector machine analysis. This optoelectronic nose proves to be a promising supplement to other available techniques for meat product inspection.