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photonic system for Adaptable muLtiple-analyte monitoring of fOod-quality

Project description

Smart solutions to monitor food quality

The health of the food industry plays a critical role in modern society. Apart from assuring adequate supply, the assessment of food quality is vitally important for human well-being. The EU-funded h-ALO project will develop a cutting-edge food sensor to enable the easy assessment of food quality and safety. The sensor will have unprecedented sensitivity to multiple contaminants from different food matrices while being fast and easy to use on-site by non-expert operators. By offering a highly sensitive, miniaturised, user-friendly solution to assess food quality, the goal is to equip local food producers and retailers with a tool that can greatly increase competitiveness and product value throughout the industry.

Objective

h-ALO aims to develop and demonstrate in real-setting a new photonic-based sensor which will allow local food producers and retailers to control food quality and safety, therefore increasing competitiveness in the whole food production value chain.
The sensor will provide:
• Unprecedented high sensitivity, low limit-of-detection and large dynamic range compared to previously developed portable systems through the combination of an analyte pre-concentration and a multi-modal detection scheme;
• Miniaturization and integration of optoelectronic and plasmonic components allowing portability in optical detection;
• Multiplex-analyte recognition, allowing the unprecedented detection of both microbiological and chemical contaminants such as pesticides/antiparasitic, heavy metals, micro-organisms;
• Easy and fast sample preparation protocols which are adaptable for a wide range of food samples;
• Measurement automation and fast response, making the sensor reliable for on-site use by farmers, retailers and non-expert operators;
• Mobile-phone connectivity and cloud-based data management allowing a distributed, anonymous food monitoring along the farm-to-fork chain.
The innovative technologies at the basis of the h-ALO sensor are:
i) highly integrated organic/hybrid photonic components as light-source and photodetector;
ii) nanoplasmonic biofunctionalized surface assessing innovative multimodal optical transduction;
iii) innovative aptamer- and immunoassay-based bio-recognition elements for multiplexing;
iv) a smart microsieve membrane for analyte pre-concentration.
The h-ALO prototype will be validated in lab by quantitative comparison with benchmark commercially available methods and demonstrated on-site in small selected agri-food chains such as aquaponics, craft beer, raw milk and organic honey, and introduced into an HACCP manual.

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RIA - Research and Innovation action

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) H2020-ICT-2018-20

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Coordinator

CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 703 248,25
Address
PIAZZALE ALDO MORO 7
00185 Roma
Italy

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Region
Centro (IT) Lazio Roma
Activity type
Research Organisations
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 703 248,25

Participants (10)

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