Photonics alcohol detector system for Syari'Ah compliance food and beverages

Abstract

In food production, sugars (a type of carbohydrate) are widely used to make the food or beverages taste sweet and delicious. Both natural and manufactured beverages may contain a small amount of alcohol (specifically ethanol) as sugar based food is fermentable into alcohol. Therefore, Muslim consumers must be aware that the allowable percentage of alcohol to exist in the food as mentioned by the Shari'ah is only 0.01%. The main inspiration of this work is to develop a low cost yet reliable alcohol percentage detector for non-alcoholics beverages. The optical properties of beverages that respond to the infrared radiation in the optical wavelengths and frequencies range are thoroughly studied. In the proposed model, percentage of ethanol in the beverages is directly determined by using the first derivative of near-infrared (NIR) absorbance spectrum where the range of wavelength used is from 1680 nm to 1700 nm. By making suitable assumptions of the NIR technique, the alcohol detector system was designed, modeled and simulated by using Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Visual Basic. The model of the alcohol detector system was found to be practical for prototype development and hence the product would help the Muslim consumers to indentify whether the beverages they consumed Halal or not.