 |
The "oil waste" incident has recently become the focus of China's food safety issue. Based on the annual statistics of national oil sales, waste oil returned to the table each year accounts for 1/10 of the sum of daily oil sales of the Chinese people.
Professor He Dongping, head of the Oil and Oil Task Force of the State Grain and Oil Standardization Committee, declared that the total consumption of animal and vegetable oils of the Chinese for a year is about 22.5 million tons, which is estimated from the annual national oil sales statistics, and is about 2 million yuan. With a gap of 3 million tons, this part of the gap can basically be regarded as waste oil, and from this point of view, the waste oil returned to the table each year accounts for 1/10 of the sum of daily oil sales of the Chinese people.
Waste edible oil (commonly referred to as waste oil) can be roughly divided into three categories, including oil extracted from swill, poor quality pork, pig viscera, and processed oil from pigskin, as well as oil used repeatedly for fried foods. These three types of oils contain many kinds of carcinogens or suspected carcinogens that are harmful to the human body.
"Unlike the detection of melamine and Sudan red in foods, the determination and detection of waste oil is still a major difficulty in the field of rapid food testing. This is mainly due to the complex composition of waste oil." Optus Optics Dr. Wang Tao, President of Nanotechnology Co., Ltd., has studied this much. When it is not clear where the oil is sourced and how it is manufactured, the method used by laboratories to judge the oil in the trenches can only be reduced to 20 after it has been refined. A variety of harmful substances were used as targets and tested one by one.
This detection method is inefficient, and the period of detection of a sample usually varies from two to three days to two weeks, which is quite unfavorable for market rectification; "If the nano-enhanced Raman spectroscopy system is used to detect waste oil, from sampling to The final test results showed that even those who have not received professional training can successfully complete the inspection of cooking oil within 10 minutes, Wang said confidently.
The nano-enhanced Raman spectroscopy detection system described by Wang Hao is a rapid detection system developed in conjunction with laser Raman spectroscopy and nanotechnology. In 1928, the Indian scientist Dr. CV Raman discovered that after each kind of material molecule is scattered by light irradiation, different Raman spectra will be formed. This spectrum is unique like human fingerprints, and people can judge according to Raman spectral contrast. The substance. He also discovered that he won the Nobel Prize in physics.
In the 1960s, a laser Raman spectrometer was born and applied to the field of detection. However, due to the weak signal of Raman spectrum, the application in detection is limited. Until the end of the last century, MIT professors discovered that the use of nanotechnology can amplify the signal of Raman spectrum by more than 10 billion times, which makes the prospect of laser Raman spectroscopy application bright.
Compared with other detection methods, the most prominent feature of Raman spectroscopy is rapid, accurate, and high throughput. In the inspection of waste oil, Optus used reversed detection thinking. Other detection methods are to detect a harmful target, while Wang Hao’s team compares the Raman spectrum of the sample to be tested with various normal edible oil Raman spectra and finds that the spectrum is inconsistent with the normal spectrum. You can quickly determine the 'abnormal' edible oil. Through deeper comparisons, it is also possible to further analyze which harmful substances it contains.
As early as in the 1980s, Wang Hao started to use Raman spectroscopy to study the optical properties of crystals in the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 1988, Wang Yong studied in the United States to pursue a Ph.D. and continued to apply Raman spectroscopy to study the optical properties of materials. Since then, he has been working on Raman spectroscopy at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Long Island, New York.
In 1995, Wang Hao came to California “Silicon Valley†and joined the semiconductor chip development company Siliconix, Inc. and Applied Materials, a semiconductor equipment company, as managers responsible for product development and quality control. During the period of living in Silicon Valley, the strong entrepreneurial atmosphere there and the spirit of Silicon Valley deeply infected Wang Hao. He is very eager to turn Raman spectrum technology into products.
At this time, Wang Hao also met with Dr. Liu Zhimin, a successful partner in entrepreneurship and business.
In 2003, this matched the exact partners in technology and business, and established Opto Trace in Silicon Valley, California. After years of research and development, Optus has finally developed a nano-enhanced laser Raman spectroscopy system for rapid detection. The system includes a laser Raman spectrometer, nanomodules, and corresponding analysis software.
Since 2004, China’s frequent food safety incidents have caused Wang Hao’s attention. Since the beginning of 2007, the company has established cooperation with AQSIQ on food safety testing. In 2009, Wang Hao returned to China and established Optus (Suzhou) Optical Nano Co., Ltd. in Suzhou Bio-Nano Park.
“In China, food safety testing is an area with broad market prospects.†In April of this year, 24 of the 151 illegal food additives announced by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture of the People's Republic of China were not tested, while 2,200 food additives were used throughout the country. Currently, 60% of them are still undetectable.
In the opinion of Wang Hao, these are the directions in which nano-enhanced laser Raman technology can be demonstrated. "Only using waste oil as an example, the National Development and Reform Commission has already planned to invest more than 2 billion yuan in the special treatment of waste oil. It is expected that in the next two years, the relevant testing and law enforcement departments will need more than 5,000 units for rapid testing equipment."
In addition to food safety, Optus is also focusing on the development of nano-enhanced Raman spectroscopy systems in public security criminal investigation, medical treatment, environmental protection, and pharmaceutical applications. "Using laser Raman spectroscopy, we can carry out in-situ, non-invasive detection of liquids in transparent containers. This is very suitable for airport security." According to Wang Xi, Optus has just obtained an airport security system. Overseas orders.
In addition, Optus is also developing a product system that uses saliva to detect early cancers. In October of this year, Optus had just been authorized in the United States for patents that use nanotechnology and Raman spectroscopy to detect early cancer. In fact, in the United States, the use of biological immune technology for saliva detection of HIV (HIV) has been FDA-accredited. The American Dental Association hopes to make 100,000 dentist clinics capable of saliva testing, and insurance companies are willing to pay for these early tests. ". "In China, our saliva screening program for early cancer has also been listed as a key project by the state."
“In the long run, Optus will not only become a supplier of testing equipment, but will also participate in the construction of national food traceability systems and health and hygiene systems and become a service provider,†said Wang Wei, “the future It is possible that everyone can find our testing equipment around and at any time to detect the various risks and crises hidden in order to effectively improve people's quality of life."