Optofluidic Raman sensor for simultaneous detection of the toxicity and quality of alcoholic beverages

We report a chemometric prediction of the toxicity and quality of liquor using an optofluidic sensor based upon Waveguide Confined Raman Spectroscopy (WCRS). The WCRS sensor was used to record the Raman spectra, each obtained from a 20 mu l sample of a given alcoholic beverage with and acquisition time of 20s. This was used to predict, simultaneously, both the methanol concentration (toxicity) and ethanol concentration (quality), with an accuracy of 0.1% and 0.7% by volume, respectively, using a Partial Least Squares-based chemometric model. The model sensor is shown to be capable of identifying toxic liquors, based on the test performed on different types of liquor samples. Copyright (c) 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.