When the fruits start maturing, they give out different gases, the composition of which is based on the composition of the respective food- fruit,vegetable etc. But ethylene is the gas which has the highest concentration amongst all of them.
Objective :-
The objective of this device is to develop an open source method to monitor the rotting process - primarily in fruits/vegetables and develop an analyzer that can detect and quantify the ethylene concentrations.
Concept :-
Ethylene sensors are not readily available as is the case with other gas sensors like carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde etc. You can buy ethylene analyzers which are bulky and expensive like felix instruments gas analyzer.
This is because there are different techniques to determine ethylene concentrations :-
- Gas chromatography
- Non dispersive infrared spectroscopy
- Electrochemical sensors
In this project I will try to use NIR spectroscopy method & if funds permit develop an electrochemical sensor. Additionally, I will be using computer vision to detect the type of food and use deep learning techniques to learn about the rotting mechanisms and automatically predict the time for consumability plus other parameters on which i will expand in the next few weeks.
(more details to be added with time)
P.S. : I will be glad to have any kind of feedback on this project.
Interesting thoughts. It may find a lot of potential in future.