BIOSENSOREN IN DER LEBENSMITTELINDUSTRIE

Abstract

Biosensors are sensors containing immobilized biological material as the sensitive part (enzyms, antibodies, microorganisms, organelles, whole cells). Besides the biological material biosensors contain an integrated optical or electrical transducer. The advantage of biosensors compared to purely physical sensors is their high selectivity. It is possible to determine single components in a complex mixture without time consuming sample-preparations. The micro-electronical part provides a high sensitivity. So it is possible to measure very low concentrations in mixtures of chemically similiar compounds. The development of biosensors has grown very fast during the last years. Actually medical applications are dominant, because only the pharmaceutical industry producing highvalue added products is able to finance the high R & D costs in the course of their biotehchnological research. In the near future these results will be used in other applicaton fields, like the environmental technology or the food industry. For the food industry some commercially available biosensors are existing, for example a biosensor to determine the freshness of fishes or another one to determine the freshness of fats and oils. These two developments come both from Japan.