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.
Field of science
- /engineering and technology/electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering/electronic engineering/sensors
Call for proposal
H2020-ICT-2020-2
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinator
00185 Roma
Italy
Participants (10)
42015 Correggio Re
27100 Pavia
35020 Legnaro
6708 PB Wageningen
5251 ZB Vlijmen
501 15 Boras
80686 Munchen
00 582 Warszawa
00186 Roma
00132 Roma