Chief Investigator:

Dr CHOW Cheuk Fai Stephen

Project Year:

2013-2015

Description:

In China and Hong Kong especially, there is major public concern with respect to food safety. Consumers need to ensure the quality and safety of the food products that they purchase. Spoilage of foods generates biogenic volatile compounds (BVCs) which are therefore key markers for food freshness. At present, there are no similar chemodosimetric materials available for detecting the freshness of foods. In this project, we will explore the feasibility of using bimetallic donor-acceptor ensembles (BmDAEs) as chemodosimeters to determine BVCs (e.g., biogenic amines, sulfides, phenols and carboxylic acids). Our objectives are to (i) design and synthesize new BmDAEs and to fabricate their nano-/microscale and solid-supported materials; (ii) study the chemodosimetric properties of all these materials towards various kinds of BVCs; (iii) analyse their applicability towards real food samples.