Distribution of waste cooking oil extracted from sewage or food waste caused controversy. In fact, how clean is the cooking oil we eat? Professor Young-Tae Chang’s team developed a sensor for detecting waste cooking oil (WCO) using fluorescent substances. Now, anyone can easily measure the degree of deterioration of any variety of cooking oil. The technology of filtering waste cooking oil like a highlighter pen measures how clean the cooking oil is.
The research team led by Professor Young-Tae Jang of the Department of Chemistry and Dr. Xiao Liu of IBS developed “Bad Oil Sensor (BOS)” the first fluorescent sensor which filters waste cooking oil with ease. The fluorescent sensor is a photo luminescent sensor that indicates whether a specific ion or material is recognized through a light signal.
The results and implications of this study on cooking oil were recently published in the international journal Sensors and Actuators B.
When cooking oil is reused several times, harmful substances are generated. Unfortunately, some of this deteriorated cooking oil is still boiled to make foods and these harmful foods are sold to consumers. However, the conventional oil inspection method was not easily accessible since it required expensive equipment and skilled technicians. Even this is difficult to apply to all types of oils since it is an indirect method that measures only the cooking oil's acidity or presence of impurities.
The research team made a sensor which easily measures the usage time of cooking oil using fluorescent materials. The sensor uses a dual method of detecting both viscosity and acidity that inevitably increases in waste cooking oil. It can accurately measure how much of each type of cooking oil was used. Furthermore, it can even detect mixed and manufactured waste cooking oil.
Based on this, the “Bad Oil Sensing System (BOSS)” was developed in the form of a portable device so that it can be directly applied to real life. This achievement is expected to be widely used to monitor the quality of cooking oil by general consumers and the food industry.
This research was supported by IBS, and a patent for the technology was recently registered.