MOX-NW Electronic Nose for detection of food microbial contamination

Gas chemical sensors were identified in the past few years as valuable candidate for food safety controls, e.g. early diagnosis of microbial contamination. Microbial management is a crucial task in food processing industry all along the entire food production chain; residual contamination may lead to loss of quality and, if the microorganisms are pathogens, can bring about severe risks for consumers´ health. For this reason an accurate and fast control of production using, possibly, at-line sensor systems is highly demanded. In this work we present the industrial application of an Electronic Nose based on metal oxide nanowire (MOX-NW) sensors for the screening of two food matrices (tomato paste and vegetable soups) contaminated with different microorganisms (yeasts and bacteria). The EN was able to detect microbial contamination in about 24 hours at very low inocula concentration, less than 1 CFU/ml.