Computer coupled ESR spectroscopy with specific application to the detection of irradiated food products

Abstract

With reference to the lifting of the ban on the sale of irradiated food products, Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) has been considered as an appropriate method of detecting such products to safeguard against fraudulent purposes. Due to the high cost of new ESR instrumentations, computerisation of older ESR facilities has been considered. An interface between a BBC microcomputer (Model B) and the ESR spectrometer (Jeol JES-FE3X) was successfully constructed to enable the spectra from the ESR spectrometer to be processed on the BBC microcomputer. In addition, detection of food irradiation by ESR spectroscopy has been considered in relation to the use of TLD method (a competitive technique for the detection of irradiated food products) to ascertain which method is the most appropriate for appraisals involving residue analysis. The simple task of computerising older ESR facilities has been proved to be advantageous over the TLD method in many ways.