Development Of Impedance and Capacitance based Sensors for the Estimation of Adulterant Ingredients in Different Bio-Consumables

TL;DR

This research develops impedance and capacitance sensors using Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy combined with optical techniques to detect and quantify toxic adulterants in food and bio-consumables, offering a rapid and cost-effective quality monitoring method.

Contribution

It introduces a novel integrated sensing approach combining EIS with optical spectroscopy for adulterant detection in bio-foods, supported by a prototype device and comprehensive analysis.

Findings

Impedance and capacitance vary systematically with adulterant levels.

Sensor plots enable quantification of adulterant percentages.

UV-Vis and FT-MIR results support EIS findings.

Abstract

Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) technique is found to be an excellent candidate for bio-sensing and food quality monitoring applications due to its rapid, robust, cost-effective and point-of-care approach. The present research work investigates the implementation of EIS technique supported by several optical spectroscopic techniques such as Ultraviolet-Visible (UV-Vis) and Fourier Transform Mid Infrared (FT-MIR) to detect and quantify several toxic adulterants in foods and bio-consumables. A comprehensive understanding on the background theory related to the study has been developed to analyze the overall polarization of the system and the effect of frequency on complex permittivity of such system have been observed. In the current work, the technique is applied to adulterated saccharides, honey and turmeric samples through a prototype sensing device. All the corresponding measurements have been performed by dipping a custom-made parallel plate conductivity cell with unity cell constant inside the solution under test. EIS study exhibited a steady variation of electrical parameters such as impedance, capacitance, conductance and current values with increasing adulterant percentage in the solution. Variation in such properties due to adulteration provides a systematic sensor plot through which one can determine their percentage of adulteration in unknown adulterated samples. Co-efficient of sensitivity has been extracted from the EIS data for adulteration study in terms of one of the measured parameters. The results of UV-Vis and FT-MIR studies have been used for comparative analyses which corroborate with the EIS results, wherever applicable.