Each year 1.3 billion tons of food is lost, of which 572 million tons are fruits and vegetables. Detection of relevant parameters for ripening, fermentation, rotting, and damage within storage units would allow timely and effective interventions when unfavorable conditions occur, however no suitable monitoring solution exist.
At the Life Science Trace Detection Lab (TD Lab) at Radboud University we perform research and develop technologies towards a practical solution.
In a first phase, during the EU H2020 - QCAP project we have demonstrated a proof-of-principle multi-species trace gas sensor. In the following project EU H2020 Fast Track to Innovation - MAX-FRESH we further developed the system into a market-ready prototype of an interactive storage system. The system is the world’s first automated multi-species trace gas sensor for fruit storage.
Project
The GREENFRUIT (GReen and Energy Efficient Next generation FRUIT quality monitoring in storage) project is a public-private collaboration together with Storex, Technical University of Denmark and NORBLIS. Here, TDLab will advance the research and development activities to the next level and focus on providing solutions that will reduces storage energy consumption by 10% by promoting green and energy efficient fresh fruit storage and sustainable agriculture.
Prototype
The general concept of the ISMAS is similar to the prototypes developed in QCAP and MAX-FRESH, which use grating-based spectrometers and 2- 4 µm supercontinuum light sources. However, ISMAS will use a 2-10 µm supercontinuum source that will be developed by NORBLIS based on novel chalcogenide fibers made by DTU, two partners of the project. Compared to the 2- 4 µm supercontinuum source used in in QCAP and MAXFRESH project, this will be a much larger optical spectral coverage of the source. To utilize this ultrabroad spectrum, the TDLab team at RU will develop a cutting-edge Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS) that will vastly improve the performance of the system as has been previously shown in our other projects of FLAIR (FLying ultrA-broadband single-shot Infra-Red sensor) and TRIAGE (ulTRa-broadband InfrAred Gas sEnsor). It will increase the number of detectable species, provide better detection sensitivity and selectivity, and reduce the interference in the detected concentration. It will eliminate the pre-calibration and periodic re-calibration requirement of the predecessor system, guaranteeing a truly calibration-free and low-maintenance operation. In addition, the ISMAS allows the user to add new species to the detection list of the system on-the-fly. This drastically increases the flexibility of the ISMAS compared to its predecessor and opens for its use in other in-situ applications with minimum hardware changes.
