Fine whisky detector to combat fraudsters

©stock.adobe.com/au/Alexandr Steblovskiy

Fine whisky detector

to combat fraudsters

Whisky is one of the most popular alcoholic beverages worldwide and, with some high-end brands fetching five or six figures, it’s also a favourite target for fraud.

To combat this, researchers have developed an electronic nose (e-nose) that can distinguish between different brands, origins and styles by ‘sniffing’ the liquor.

The project was led by Associate Professor Steven Su with PhD students Wentian Zhang and Taoping Liu, from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), in collaboration with chemists Professor Shari Forbes and Dr Maiken Ueland.

“Up until now, detecting the differences between whiskies has required either a trained whisky connoisseur, who might still get it wrong, or complex and time-consuming chemical analysis by scientists in a lab,” Associate Professor Su said.

“So to have a rapid, easy-to-use, real-time assessment of whisky to identify the quality, and uncover any adulteration or fraud, could be very beneficial for both high-end wholesalers and purchasers,” he said.

The team used a new e-nose prototype (called NOS.E), developed at UTS, to identify the differences between six whiskies by their brand names, regions and styles in less than four minutes.

The study findings, recently published in the journal IEEE Sensors, showed the e-nose reached 100% accuracy for detecting the region, 96.15% accuracy for brand name and 92.31% accuracy for style.

NOS.E is designed to mimic the human olfactory system, using eight gas sensors to detect odours in a vial of whisky. The sensor array generates the unique signal matrix according to the different odour molecules it comes into contact with.

It then sends the data to a computer for analysis, with a machine learning algorithm trained to recognise whisky characteristics.

The researchers confirmed the NOS.E findings using lab tests on the whisky samples: time-of-flight mass spectrometry paired with two-dimensional gas chromatography, which yielded similar results.

The technology not only has applications in the alcohol industry, with beverages such as wine and cognac as well as whisky, but also for other products that are subject to counterfeiting, such as high-end perfume.

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PULS has released its decentralised FIEPOS power supplies for flexible use directly in the field, with IP54, IP65 or IP67 protection classes. Puls FIEPOS, short for FIEld POwer Supply, represents a new type of power supply that was developed for a decentralised environment. They are designed to be easy to install and flexible enough to meet the diverse requirements of modular factory automation. Decentralisation improves efficiency and lowers cost by removing the need for oversized supplies and long runs of large cross-section cables. The field power supplies are available in either Basic Series or eFuse Series. Both series are available with power of 300 or 500 W for single-phase or three-phase systems and as IP54, IP65 or IP67. Both can be DIN rail or surface mounted, with up to 200% power reserve for 5 s and have a wide operating temperature range up to 70°C with derating. The Basic series models have a single DC output. They can be connected in parallel to increase total performance or create a redundant system.

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Mixing old techniques and new technology to make kimchi

©stock.adobe.com/au/Natasha Breen

Two companies in German are relying on Kronen machinery to process vegetables into kimchi and other fermented vegetable products.

In fermented vegetable products, such as kimchi, lactic acid fermentation makes the processed vegetables last longer and alters their taste. The products are seasoned with various spices, bringing healthy ingredients and versatile flavour to a variety of dishes.

The two companies, completeorganics and umami more (operating as Fermentur), have each been producing fermented vegetable products for some time. With rising demand for their products, they introduced Kronen processing machinery for washing, cutting and mixing vegetables at scale ready for the production of the product.

Kronen set up GS 10-2 belt cutting machines for cutting cabbage into an appropriate size for kimchi and carrots into sticks. A GEWA washing machine with vibration discharge was also used for cleaning as well as a K230 salad and fine foods mixer to combine the vegetables. The machinery is able to process the food gently to allow for a high-quality end product and production capacity can be increased. Once mixed and evenly combined, the vegetables are then processed and fermented into kimchi.

Kronen www.kronen.eu/en

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