B&W Tek, an advanced instrumentation company that delivers lab quality Raman spectroscopy solutions through user-friendly mobile platforms is proud to announce that their award-winning TacticID-GP handheld spectrometer has been utilized by a Philippine federal safety agency as a critical safety tool for the identification of plastic rice – a quickly emerging problem across Asia.
The TacticID-GP system has an on-board library of thousands of hazardous and common chemicals, explosives, narcotics, pharmaceutical drugs and more – including many polymers. The system delivers fast, accurate, on-site identification of unknown substances in seconds with clear warning signals and safety information. The instrument can scan directly through clear packaging bags containing food products such as rice.
Rice has long been a staple in nearly all Asian cultures, but consumption of rice has taken a potentially lethal turn in the last several months. Confirmed in countries like Indonesia, the Philippines, India and Vietnam, the emergence of plastic resin-based synthetic rice is causing serious health concerns. If ingested, the synthetic rice can cause internal digestive complications and is potentially lethal in large quantities.
In late July 2015, the TacticID-GP was tested by a Philippine federal safety agency in an effort to rapidly identify authentic rice from fake rice. The system quickly and clearly identified real rice as ‘Starch’ with a green ‘all clear’ background screen and the fake rice as ‘Styrene Acrylonitrile Copolymer’ with a yellow background warning screen. Interest in TacticID-GP since this evaluation has increased across much of Asia for this application.
B&W Tek is excited to be able to deliver tools to various Asian safety agencies that provide a means to increase safety and stay one step ahead of illegal and dangerous food contaminations.
For more information on TacticID visit www.TacticID.com.