Development of a Capacitive Sensor-Based Device for Rapid Assessment of Adulteration in Mustard Oil

Adulteration of edible oils is amongst the most ominous food safety issues of the present times. Prevalence of mustard oil (MO) being adulterated with argemone oil (AO) is common, consequent upon which are the serious health issues for consumers. Common approaches to detect adulteration in edible oil are time consuming and laboratory oriented. Conceding to the abovesaid issues, a portable instrument for rapid assessment of adulteration has been developed based on the dielectric properties of mustard and AO. The developed capacitive sensor system is calibrated to record the capacitance and its variance in terms of the extent of adulteration of MO with AO. While the hardware assembly comprised – micro controller, temperature sensor, crystal oscillator, resistors, inductors, capacitors, light emitting diode (LED), etc.; there was a C++-based software at the backend which actuated the LED to blink based on a predefined threshold capacitance. The number of blinks in 60 s indicated the extent of adulteration in a given oil sample. The developed capacitive sensor demonstrated an accuracy of 86.7% for the MO samples with an AO adulteration of 5% or above.