The “Portable Toxic Threat Detector” lets you know if your food is safe to eat

If you are interested in knowing what’s in your food, you may soon be able to use the portable toxic threat detector or PTTD, a mechanism developed by third year electronics and telecommuncation engineering students at GH Raisoni College of Engineering, Saurabh Puranik, Shreya Dhondarikar, Sagar Nasre and Sowmya Singh.  It will not only tell you what is safe to eat, but the best method of scientifcally removing the contaminant.

Saurabh was motivated to develop the device after reading about the high pesticide content in the farm produce in India being very high and how entire population was facing the threat of genetic disorder and cancer.  “It scared me, he said, so I decided to do something about it.”

“We developed the threat detector that can give qualitative and quantitative analysis of the foodstuff. Since the device could only be helpful in case of solid food items, we developed another one which looks like a mobile phone and can be put inside a container,” he said. Both these devices give instantaneous results with the help of biosensors. The present device is only a prototype and can take a weight up to one kilogram.

The PTTD has been presented at many national and international forums where it has garnered much appreciation. The team is now in talks with several laboratories like National Environmental Engineering and Research Institute (Neeri) and AGMARK to help them with the lab testing of the device which will help them apply for a patent. They have also presented the idea to some venture capitalists who have shown their interest in it.

HOW IT WORKS:

Food stuff is kept on the plate on the sensor

In case of a liquid, the device shaped like a mobile phone is dipped into it

Bio sensors help detect the chemicals contained in the item

It gives out the quantitative measurement of contaminants and tells about the quality of the foodstuff

A software that has information about permissible limits of all known contaminants, processes the data of the given foodstuff to display the safety level

You can find the full article here.