Two Coffs Harbour TAFE teachers, Dr Paul Brockwell, and fellow innovator Dr Robert Holland have developed a unique smart label capable of determining everything from the freshness of food to how many kilojoules a person has burned during exercise.
As a result, Dr Paul Brockwell is one of 21 finalists in the 2008 INNOVIC Next Big Thing Award™.
This annual nation-wide competition aims to find and showcase exciting new Australian products with the potential to become the 'next big thing'.
Winners receive over $50,000 in cash and prizes.
“Our ‘smart labels’ are intelligent plastic sensors," Dr Brockwell says.
"They are accurate and low cost which enables manufacturers to provide easy-to-read quality assurance."
“IThe device shows, by colour change or appearing/disappearing text, how fresh a product is, how much freshness has been lost, and how much freshness remains.“
Dr Brockwell says the product could be useful for a large variety of industries including:
- Food and hospitality - Freshness monitoring for food and beverages
- Medical - monitoring freshness of products such as vaccines, blood, pharmaceuticals
- Health and fitness — monitoring human and animal physiology such as heart rates and metabolism
- Environmental — monitoring air and water quality as well as pollution Industry - monitoring the concentration of sanitisers such as pool chlorination and hospital hygiene
- Agriculture — monitoring soil quality, plant nutrition and fermentation processing.
Brockwell has already begun work with leading avocado producers to develop “ripeness stickers” as well as a leading international blood company which has asked him to develop a product which will meter the lifespan of red blood cells and blood platelets.
He is now seeking support from investors and other industries for his research.
Dr Brockwell’s innovation, along with those of the other 20 finalists, will be on display at an exhibition to be held at the Melbourne Museum between May 14 and June 22.
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