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'Sniffing' out counterfeit liquors

Date:
January 10, 2018
Source:
American Chemical Society
Summary:
Watered-down or fake liquors can reap financial rewards for nefarious individuals, but the adulteration of liquor cheats consumers and can even lead to health hazards from added contaminants. Scientists now report a portable device with an advanced sensor array that can identify liquors and determine if they'd been altered, offering a strategy for liquor quality assurance.
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Watered-down or fake liquors can reap financial rewards for nefarious individuals, but the adulteration of liquor cheats consumers and can even lead to health hazards from added contaminants. Scientists now report in ACS Sensors a portable device with an advanced sensor array that can identify liquors and determine if they'd been altered, offering a strategy for liquor quality assurance.

In the past few years, deaths from contaminated alcohol have been reported in Indonesia, Mexico, China, Poland and Russia, among other places. Unscrupulous individuals hoping to make a profit may homebrew liquor and bottle it in official-looking packaging or dilute liquor with anything from water to antifreeze. Kenneth S. Suslick and Zheng Li from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign wanted to address this growing health concern by engineering a device that can easily identify tainted products.

The researchers developed a disposable sensor with 36 dyes that change color upon exposure to particular components in liquor. Partial oxidation of the liquor vapors improved the sensor's response. Using a handheld image analyzer to detect these color changes, the scientists correctly identified the alcoholic content and brand of 14 different liquors, including various scotch whiskies, bourbon, rye, brandy and vodka with greater than 99 percent accuracy. In a proof-of-concept experiment to demonstrate a real-world application, the researchers also sniffed out booze that had been watered down, even by as little as 1 percent.


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Materials provided by American Chemical Society. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal Reference:

  1. Zheng Li, Kenneth S. Suslick. A Hand-Held Optoelectronic Nose for the Identification of Liquors. ACS Sensors, 2017; DOI: 10.1021/acssensors.7b00709

Cite This Page:

American Chemical Society. "'Sniffing' out counterfeit liquors." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 10 January 2018. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180110112913.htm>.
American Chemical Society. (2018, January 10). 'Sniffing' out counterfeit liquors. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 8, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180110112913.htm
American Chemical Society. "'Sniffing' out counterfeit liquors." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180110112913.htm (accessed October 8, 2024).

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