Alessandro Zompanti

Unmasking of Olive Oil Adulteration Via a Multi-Sensor Platform

Methods for the chemical and sensorial evaluation of olive oil are frequently changed and tuned to oppose the increasingly sophisticated frauds. Although a plethora of promising alternatives has been developed, chromatographic techniques remain the more reliable yet, even at the expense of their related execution time and costs. In perspective of a continuous increment in the number of the analyses as a result of the global market, more rapid and effective methods to guarantee the safety of the olive oil trade are required. In this study, a novel artificial sensorial system, based on gas and liquid analysis, has been employed to deal with olive oil genuineness and authenticity issues. Despite these sensors having been widely used in the field of food science, the innovative electronic interface of the device is able to provide a higher reproducibility and sensitivity of the analysis. The multi-parametric platform demonstrated the capability to evaluate the organoleptic properties of extra-virgin olive oils as well as to highlight the presence of adulterants at blending concentrations usually not detectable through other methods.

An Electronic System for the Contactless Reading of ECG Signals

The aim of this work is the development of a contactless capacitive sensory system for the detection of (Electrocardiographic) ECG-like signals. The acquisition approach is based on a capacitive coupling with the patient body performed by electrodes integrated in a front-end circuit. The proposed system is able to detect changes in the electric charge related to the heart activity. Due to the target signal weakness and to the presence of other undesired signals, suitable amplification stages and analogue filters are required. Simulated results allowed us to evaluate the effectiveness of the approach, whereas experimental measurements, recorded without contact to the skin, have validated the practical effectiveness of the proposed architecture. The system operates with a supply voltage of ±9 V with an overall power consumption of about 10 mW. The analogue output of the electronic interface is connected to an ATmega328 microcontroller implementing the A/D conversion and the data acquisition. The collected data can be displayed on any multimedia support for real-time tracking applications.

Resonant Directly Coupled Inductors–Capacitors Ladder Network Shows a New, Interesting Property Useful for Application in the Sensor Field, Down to Micrometric Dimensions

The study of ladder networks made by sequences of directly coupled inductor–capacitor single cells has led us to discover a new property, which may be of certain interest in the sensor field. In the case of n cells, the n-frequencies vector characterizing each node may allow for the identification of that capacitor (sensor), which has experienced a variation of its nominal value. This localization is possible independently from the observable node of the ladder network as proven by the application of the following multivariate data analysis techniques: principal component analysis and partial least square discriminant analysis. This property can be applied on a large scale down to micrometric dimensions in agreement with the technologic ability to shrink the capacitive sensor dimensions.

Design and Development of an Electronic Interface for Gas Detection and Exhaled Breath Analysis in Liquids

Among gas sensors, the ones measuring carbon dioxide and oxygen are crucial for many application fields: the monitoring of air quality, the control of food packaging processes, the study of biochemical mechanisms, and specific reactions related to many different studies in the biomedical context. Many of the sensors used for the measure of carbon dioxide (CO2) and oxygen (O2) are based on electrochemical, optical, and conductometric working principles, which allow to cover the very different ranges of concentration which represent the target of each different field or specific application with good reproducibility and sensitivity. This paper presents a voltammetric sensor showing an innovative approach for the measure of gas and vapors by the interaction of a screen-printed electrode system with the liquid solution, where the gases are conveyed. The design and realization of this sensor system are reported. Calibration tests with CO2 and O2 have given acceptable reproducibility and sensitivity. Besides, this paper shows that new results have been obtained by analyzing exhaled breath collected by control individuals.

Breath‐print analysis by e‐nose may refine risk stratification for adverse outcomes in cirrhotic patients

The spectrum of volatile organic compounds in the exhaled breath (breath‐print, BP) has been shown to characterize patients with cirrhosis and with worse hepatic function. However, the association of different BPs with clinically relevant outcomes has not been described yet. Hence, we aimed to evaluate the association between BPs, mortality and hospitalization in cirrhotic patients and to compare it with that of the “classical” prognostic indices (Child‐Pugh Classification [CPC] and MELD).

Advances in the electronics for cyclic voltammetry: the case of gas detection by using microfabricated electrodes.

This paper presents an advanced voltammetric system to be used as electronic tongue for liquid and gas analysis. It has been designed to be more flexible and accurate with respect to other existing and similar systems. It features improved electronics and additional operative conditions. Among others these include the possibility to optically excite the solution and to treat the output signal by a differentiation process in order to better evidence the existence of small details in the response curve. Finally by the same type of tongue preliminary results are shown dealing with O2 and CO2 concentration measurements in appropriate solutions.