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App shows pesticide contamination in fruits and vegetables
Health experts recommend consuming at least five servings of fruits and vegetables daily. Often, organic products are advised here because conventional goods are often contaminated with poisonous sprays. A new app will help discover pesticide residues in the herbal diet.
Pesticide residues on fruits and vegetables
Vegetable food is healthy, but fruit and vegetables must always be washed thoroughly, as there are often numerous toxins. You can not see the dangerous pesticide residues. A new app to help discover the health-endangering chemicals.
Unfortunately, fruits and vegetables are often contaminated with pesticide residues. A new app is designed to help detect dangerous chemicals in food. (Image: M.studio/fotolia.com) Check ingredients of food
With the app "HawkSpex® mobile" of the Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation IFF in Magdeburg, consumers will in future have the opportunity to check ingredients of food.
A statement from the institute explains the principle: "You pull out your smartphone, open the app, point it at the object to be examined - such as the apple - and get the information you want: for example, if the apple contains pesticide residues."
For the measurement only the smartphone camera is necessary
There are already systems with which such measurements can be carried out. However, the user usually has to clamp extra parts, such as a prism, in front of the integrated camera - which is expensive and impractical and also disturbs the design of the smartphone.
"The special feature of our app: The user needs nothing more than the camera for the measurement, which is already integrated in his smartphone," explained Prof. Udo Seiffert, field leader at the Fraunhofer IFF.
The communication also explains how the researchers around project leader Andreas Herzog managed to do without a prism: "Since there is no hyperspectral camera integrated in the smartphone, we simply reversed this principle," says Seiffert.
"We have a camera with a broadband three-channel sensor - so one that measures all wavelengths - and illuminate the subject with light of different colors."
This means that the camera does not measure the light intensity in the different colors, but the display illuminates the apple successively in fractions of a second in a series of different colors.
The app then analyzes how the object - for example the apple - reflects the differently colored light. This concludes the app, whether pesticides are on the surface or not.
App could hit the market by the end of the year
According to the information, the first lab version of the patent-pending app is ready. Seiffert hopes to be launched at the end of 2017.
"HawkSpex® mobile" should not only be useful when buying food. "There are so many uses imaginable that the market will certainly overrun us," Seiffert is sure.
Therefore, the researchers rely on an approach that is modeled on the online lexicon Wikipedia. "When the app hits the market at the end of 2017, dedicated users can contribute to the big picture and create new applications, such as assessing herbicide load, by getting the system ready to tackle such a problem," explained Seiffert.
In other words, they measure approximately treated and untreated lettuce heads of various varieties with the app and send the data to the Fraunhofer IFF. Researchers check the measurements and enable the application for all users. (Ad)