Abstract

Histamine is organic nitrogen compound which is derived from decarboxylation of histidine. It is present in several vegetables, fruits, beer and various foodstuffs. When food is spoiled, the histamine concentration increases and crosses the toxic level. When histamine is released from its granules, it causes several allergic reactions like eyes to etch, cramps in the stomach and for higher concentration, it may lead to death [1]. Therefore a quick, low cost and the highly sensitive sensor is required for the detection of histamine. In the present study, we report a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) based fiber optic sensor for histamine detection utilizing the molecular imprinting technique. For the realization of SPR phenomenon, a 40 nm thick Ag layer is coated over the core of the fiber. Further, an over a layer of molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) is coated by dip coating method. The MIP layer has the binding sites which are specific to the template molecule to be detected [2]. When template molecule comes near these binding sites, it binds with weak interaction and results in the change in refractive index of MIP layer. This change is further recognized as the shift in resonance wavelength to satisfy the SPR condition [3]. A schematic of sensing probe and the experimental instrumentation used for the characterization has been represented in figure 1.

© 2016 Japan Society of Applied Physics, Optical Society of America