Quality Assessment of Apple Cider Vinegar and Acetic Acid Using IDC based RF Planar Sensor

A highly sensitive tapered microstrip line-based RF sensor is proposed for quality assessment of vinegar and other standard acetic acid products. The proposed RF sensors is based on the IDC integrated SRR coupled with the tapered microstrip line to attain higher sensitivity. The tapering of the 50-ohm microstrip line to 100-ohm impedance basically improves the electric field intensity and provides better coupling with the corresponding SRR element. The integration of IDC with the SRR improves the field confinement in the sensing region, which basically improves the overall sensitivity of the designed sensor. For detecting the purity of acetic acid and vinegar specimens, the corresponding analyte is injected through 0.5mm thick glass tube into the sensing region. The acetic acid concentration in DI water is first determined here by varying the acetic acid concentration from 0 to 100%. In the later part of this work, the proposed sensor is used to establish the quality assessment of the Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV) and to distinguish between ACV and the Synthetic Vinegar (SV).