SBIR Phase II: Fish Freshness Quality Sensor

Sensor Research And Development Corporation, Orono ME

Investigators

Abstract

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will further the design, development, construction, and evaluation of a prototype fish freshness sensor based on the successful Phase I feasibility demonstration of using an array of semiconducting metal oxide chemiresistive sensors for quantitative fish freshness quality determination. The advantages of this approach to fish freshness monitoring is that the array data will provide information about the complex gases emitted by fish during degradation and will provide a basis for signal processing techniques to quantify the fish freshness. The Phase II research is directed towards extending the Phase I demonstration of determining the freshness of Atlantic salmon to other species of fish and to a wider variety of fish handling procedures. The fish freshness sensor data will be compared with results from a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer and a sensory evaluation panel of trained individuals. A field-deployable prototype will be tested on location at fish processing plants to non-destructively determine the degree of degradation of fresh marine fin fish.