Testing For Added Water in Milk with Handheld LCR Meter

Abstract

Milk adulteration is a problem for the dairy industry. It can cause economic losses, lowering the quality of products and putting the consumers’ safety in risk, especially milk products for children and infants. Adding water to milk is a common practice by farmers in many countries. A method of electrical conductance measurement at high frequency can give information if the milk is with added water before processing it. The objective of the research is to develop a measuring method with handheld device that can detect added water in fresh milk by measuring the electrical conductance. Namely, if there is no added water, the conductance will drop down of the initial value if we add 1 % water, but will rise to initial value if we add 2 % and after will decrease continuously with addition of 3 % or more. If there was already added water, the conductance of the milk will decrease only with addition of water without noticeable drop of the value when we add 1-2 %.