Portable and low cost fluorescence set-up for in-situ screening of Ochratoxin A

The present article describes a portable and low cost fluorescence set-up designed and characterized for in-situ screening of Ochratoxin A (OTA) in cocoa samples at field settings. The sensing module (the set up) consists of a LED with the wavelength of 370–380 nm and a color complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) micro-camera inbuilt at upright position of a black box to obtain an image of the sensing molecule. It allows the user to get an image of the sensing analytes under excitation conditions and process the image in order to predict the toxicity of the samples. The image capturing and processing of the system was based on the OTA concentration in the sample and analyzed data can be presented as RGB values. For each concentration of the OTA, the R, G, B co-ordinates were obtained and plotted to quantify actual OTA presents in the sample. Moreover, the system was tested for real sample analysis using cocoa contaminated with OTA. The system could detect OTA as low as 1.25 ng/ml with the maximum recovery of 87.5% in cocoa samples. The OTA was extracted in 1% NaHCO₃ and cleaned up using molecular imprinted polymer column (MIP). The method demonstrated a good linear range between 1.25 and 10 ng/ml. The obtained results were cross validated using chromatographic method HPLC and also compared with commercially available fluorescence instrument. The developed fluorescence setup is simple, economical, and portable with added advantages of digital image processing. The system could be deployable to cocoa fields for monitoring of OTA in quick successions. It is noteworthy to mention that this is the first report of such portable fluorescence setup where, OTA sensing was explored.