Abstract :
n the modern era, as now, anything someone will do to meet their daily
needs. Food or snacks are currently mostly using preservatives in the
manufacturing process, where food preservatives are divided into two types,
namely natural preservatives such as salt, sugar, apple vinegar, garlic and others
and artificial preservatives namely borax and formalin which are dangerous for
the human body that consumes it. In this research, a tool that is able to detect the
content of formalin in food is designed by using an Arduino Uno microcontroller.
In this research, the main ingredient used as research subjects is the
detection of formaldehyde content in food ingredients. In general, this tool serves
to detect the content of formaldehyde in a meal by using a gas detection sensor,
the MQ-2 sensor. The MQ-2 sensor is the main sensor that will detect
formaldehyde levels in the food samples to be tested. This sensor works by
detecting moisture content resulting from heating of boiled food samples on a
stainless pitcher. The results of the MQ-2 sensor readings will be displayed on a
16x2 lcd display in the form of a message containing the percentage of formalin
contained.
The research results obtained from the testing process are, MQ2 sensors
can distinguish types of foods that contain formaldehyde and those that do not
contain formaldehyde. This can be seen from the sensor output voltage range, for
foods that do not contain formalin 1.15 volt dc to 1.21 volt dc. Whereas food
containing formalin produces an output voltage of 2.32 volt dc to 2.43 volt dc.