Investigation of Adulteration in Milk using Surface Plasmon Resonance

Abstract

Milk adulteration is a serious problem that threatens public safety in today's world. Various chemical reactions can be used to detect adulterants on a qualitative level but they are often tedious and expensive. The quantitative overview of milk adulterants can, on the other hand, be easily effected using surface plasmon resonance (SPR), a very sensitive optical tool used for investigating surface interactions. Economic and chemical adulterants (water, urea, and H2O2) in milk specimens can be detected using the SPR optical sensor at even parts per million levels. The optical and dielectric properties of milk samples are also knownd for various adulterants. For sensing different concentrations of H2O2 the sensitivity of an SPR-based optical sensor is 0.145°/(mg ml−1). The obtained results in the present work clearly show the possible application of the SPR technique as a sensor for the detection of adulterants in milk using prism/Au/sample system.