Electrical gas sensors for meat freshness assessment and quality monitoring: A review

Background: The simple methods for Freshness assessment have been gained attention in the last years, mainly in case of highly perishable food products as those delivered by the meat sector. Furthermore, the growing demand for fresh and safe food makes the development of reliable, low-cost and time-saving methods for freshness investigation an important need. In this context, gas sensors represent a valuable tool to food freshness and quality monitoring, avoiding the supply and consumption of rotten meat products, which may be associated with foodborne diseases. Scope and approach: The present work gives an overview of the existing gas sensors applied to meat quality monitoring, with emphasis on a particular class of gas sensors, the electrical gas sensors. This type of sensors has been shown to have a promissory interface with wireless technologies, such as the existing NFC (near field communication) and RFID (radio frequency identification) sensor tags, which may lead to meat quality and safety assurance at consumers' level. Key findings and conclusions: The presented literature studies demonstrated that the electrical properties of different materials have been exploited for the development of gas sensors. The implementation of electrical gas sensors interfaced with wireless is a promising technology in the near future because of the possibility of a rapid and accessible meat quality monitoring.