Life Cycle Assessment of Food Sensors

Abstract: The global demand for food increased with the booming trend of population, while food waste is a severe issue to be solved. Xanthine is a chemical compound which will accumulate in meat after the death of the animal, and the concentration of it can be an indicator of meat freshness. In this study, a life cycle assessment was made on the prototype of xanthine detection food sensor based on current fabrication method.  The results show that in the whole production stage, the Deposition and Liftoff process caused the most environmental impact, more precisely the gold used in the deposition and liftoff process. The impact of gold accounts for more than 99% of the total impact. On the one hand, this result is because gold is relatively rare in nature, and the mining process will cause serious environmental impact. On the other hand, under the existing manufacturing process, most of the gold is sprayed on the inner wall of the machine, causing serious waste.  In the sensitive analysis section, three possible new methods are proposed to reduce the environmental impact caused by gold, namely replacing gold with silver, producing more sensors at the same time, and using printed electronics technology. Alternative materials and printed electronics can reduce the environmental impact to about only 3% compared with before, while producing more sensors at the same time can reduce it to about 26%.  In the end, each functional unit was compared with the potential meat waste reduction (8 kg of common meat). Among them, beef has a greater environmental impact, and the use of sensors may help to reduce environmental impact, while chicken has a smaller environmental impact, and the use of sensors may increase the environmental impact.  In all, the current food sensor technology is not mature enough, and there is still far away from the large-scale application. With the research and the development of technology and materials, the cost and environmental impact of food sensors may gradually decrease, and perhaps one day food sensors can be really used in daily life.