Are you using your RFID chipcard to open doors? Why not using your RFID chip to check for food safety of a product? In the wake of many different formats of handheld devices for food analysis entering the market, this innovation is an unlikely contender.
We have all heard about NIR-based scanners and immunological devices, which have already existed for some time in one format or another in the laboratories. By changing the format and miniaturizing them, these devices have become portable. But RFID? It is not the first product that comes to mind when I think about food safety testing. I associate RFID chips more with opening doors using chipcards or the unpleasant habit of some clothes brands trying to track where their customers go to target them with tailored advertising.
Well, researchers from MIT have demonstrated that RFID can indeed be used to detect changes (including adulterations) in food and drink products. When the RFID antenna of the chip is excited, it transmits signals into the product and back to the receiver. And the ones that are transmitted into the product are the ones that make all the difference. According to the team of Unsoo Ha, the product alters slightly the received signal, and if the product changes (e.g. through microbiological spoilage or adulteration), the received signal will change too. The research team has demonstrated the usefulness of RFID technology for food safety testing by detecting methanol in alcoholic drinks. The system detected concentrations of 25% methanol and above reliably.
While this is a very important innovation, it is important to put things into perspective. Ten milliliters of methanol already cause severe health effects and can lead to blindness. Let’s say a bottle of Whisky contains 20% methanol (i.e. below of what the RFID chip can reliably detect), and you have two generous shots (e.g. in two cocktails), you easily accumulate 10 ml methanol. And even if the bottle has an RFID chip, the methanol at that concentration will likely go unnoticed. So the detection limits at present can only be seen as a first step and still need improvement. The researchers also adulterated infant formula with melamine and were successful in reliably detecting amounts of 10% melamine and above. It was not mentioned if other nitrogen-rich adulterants (like urea) could also be detected with the same sensitivity.
These two experiments clearly demonstrate the potential of the technology which is very promising indeed, for a number of reasons: availability, simplicity, and low cost. Hopefully, further research will be able to lower the detection limits to relevant levels.
