Potentiality of ethanol curcumin extract as biosensor for detection of sodium tetraborate

Abstract

Sodium tetraborate in foods is very dangerous and fatal if consumed continuously even if only in small quantities. Because the dangers of sodium tetraborate in food products for health, it is necessary to detect this chemical. Bioactives from local resource such as curcumin are natural ingredients that produce color with certain specificity. Curcumin is extracted from turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) in ethanol crude extract. The change color of curcumin against certain chemical that contain boron make this bioactive potential to be developed as biosensor to detect sodium tetraborate. The result showed that the curcumin had visual LOD of 50 ppm in the range 50-500 ppm of sodium tetraborate. The curcumin detection time for sodium tetraborate was 1-2 minutes. Curcumin has good selectivity against sodium tetraborate, its performance was not interfered with the presence of other chemicals (sodium benzoate, sodium nitrite, formalin, and sodium cyclamate). The selectivity and sensitivity of curcumin to sodium tetraborate are the basic information in the development of biosensor. Therefore, curcumin is highly potential to be developed as a biosensor to detect sodium tetraborate in food products.