Low cost and optical detection from fluorescence of Ochratoxin A

Abstract

Ochratoxin A (OTA) is one of the most abundant food-contaminating mycotoxins, is detected worldwide in various food and feed sources and its toxicity in animals is more potent than other metabolites. Detected by the analytical methods, in spite of their high sensitivity, these methods are not suitable for analysis in-situ. Hence, this work consists to develop a low cost and portable system to quantify the concentrations of OTA through ownership of fluorescence. That occurs when it is excited with ultraviolet light (UV) at 375nm. First, an UV emitter and a silicon photodiodes were used; the limit of detection (LOD) was 250 ng/mL, a battery as source and an acquisition system with LabVIEW to process the information in a computer. To detect lower levels, a camera and red, blue and green (RGB) components were employed. The LOD was 5 µg/L. The camera detected the fluorescence in the sample when this was excited with UV light, the variation in the intensity of the color is measured and it has relation with the concentration of the sample.