No. 132: Device to detect the content of cadmium in rice in a few minutes (August 14, 2010)

A subsidiary of Seiko Instruments developed a device to detect the concentration of cadmium contained in rice in a few minutes. The device measures the concentration of microelements by irradiating a sample with X-ray. The company improved the X-ray fluorescence spectrometer that examines chemical agents in an electronic device for the examination of food contents. The detection sensitivity increased considerably, and the lowest detection concentration is set at 0.1 ppm. The device measures the concentration of coated rice or polished rice put in the container in about two minutes on average. The method realized by this device is more cost effective and less time consuming than the method using plasma that needs pretreatment of the sample for examination. The device will be put on the market for 10 million yen coming fall. In Japan, Food Standards Law will be revised in February next year. With the revision, the maximum cadmium concentration of marketable rice will be decreased from the current 1.0 ppm to 0.4 ppm.