Distinguishing Between Organic and Pesticide Treated Strawberries Using a Chemical Sensor Array
1Departamento de Física, Universidade Federal do Paraná, Curitiba, PR, Brazil
2Departamento de Patologia Básica, Entomologia Agrícola e de Microbiologia e Biologia, Universidade Federal do Paraná, Curitiba, PR, Brazil
3DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Strong Materials and Molecular Sciences Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, , South Africa
4Departamento de F�sica, Universidade Federal do Paran�, Curitiba, PR, Brazil
*Email Address : iah@fisica.ufpr.br
Abstract : We report on the application of a chemical sensors array to distinguish organic strawberries from pesticide treated strawberries. The sensors were prepared dispersing multiwalled carbon nanotubes (undoped, nitrogen doped or boron doped multiwalled carbon nanotubes) by an aqueous solution using a surfactant assisted method and depositing the dispersion onto interdigitated electrodes. The conductance of the sensors was taken as sensor response and tristimulus analysis was applied as a pattern recognition method. We investigated strawberries sprayed with a specific pesticide, lambda-cyhalothrin (synthetic pyrethroid), comparing the sensors array response with that produced by organic strawberries. We demonstrate that the use of this simple 3-sensors array and tristimulus analysis strategy is an effective method for the distinction of organic strawberries from pesticide treated ones.
Keywords : Chemical sensors array,carbon nanotubes,tristimulus analysis,Fragaria x ananassa,synthetic pyrethroids,