Is The Meat Safe To Eat? Nanotubes Have The Answer

Fluorescent nanotubes that dim in response to amines could be used to detect meat spoilage in near real-time.

AsianScientist (Nov. 25, 2015) – Scientists have developed a way to use nanotubes to quickly detect whether meat is spoiled or still safe to sell. The new method, reported in ACS Sensors, could help food manufacturers supply meat more reliably to consumers.

Assessing whether meat and seafood transported from the farm or sea to the market has gone bad is not a simple process. Current methods of measuring freshness can be highly sensitive to spoilage but require bulky, slow equipment, which prevents real-time analysis. Some newer methods designed to speed up the testing process have fallen short in sensitivity.

Professor Che Yanke and his colleagues from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Chemistry, wanted to develop one simple test that could deliver both rapid and sensitive results.

The researchers turned to highly fluorescent, hollow nanotubes that grow dim when they react with compounds given off by meat as it decomposes. To test the nanotubes, the team sealed commercial samples of one gram each, of pork, beef, chicken, fish and shrimp in containers for up to four days.

When the researchers exposed the portable system to a teaspoon of vapor emitted by the samples, it reacted in under an hour, fast enough to serve as a real-time measure of freshness. The researchers also found that if the tubes’ glow dulled by more than ten percent, this meant a sample was spoiled.

The article can be found at: Hu et al. (2015) Detection of Amines with Fluorescent Nanotubes: Applications in the Assessment of Meat Spoilage.

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Source: The American Chemical Society; Photo: Anthony Albright/Flickr/CC.
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