Research note

DryCardTM — A Low-Cost Dryness Indicator for Dried Products

  • Received: 25 May 2017 Accepted: 08 October 2017 Published: 11 October 2017
  • Mycotoxin contamination of food and feed is a significant health hazard in humid areas of the world. Fungal development can be halted if the water activity of dried products is kept below 0.65. This preliminary study evaluates the color response and response time of a low-cost humidity indicator that estimates water activity. The DryCardTM has a consistent color response to relative humidity and its response time is fast enough to be used in practical situations for estimating water activity. The card comes with use instructions and it can be reused many times. It is a crucial tool to assist smallholder farmers and traders in ensuring their crops have been adequately dried.

    Citation: James F. Thompson, Michael S. Reid, Lucia Felix, Irwin Donis-Gonzalez, Bertha Mjawa, and Jane Ambuko. DryCardTM — A Low-Cost Dryness Indicator for Dried Products[J]. AIMS Agriculture and Food, 2017, 2(4): 339-344. doi: 10.3934/agrfood.2017.4.339

    Related Papers:

  • Mycotoxin contamination of food and feed is a significant health hazard in humid areas of the world. Fungal development can be halted if the water activity of dried products is kept below 0.65. This preliminary study evaluates the color response and response time of a low-cost humidity indicator that estimates water activity. The DryCardTM has a consistent color response to relative humidity and its response time is fast enough to be used in practical situations for estimating water activity. The card comes with use instructions and it can be reused many times. It is a crucial tool to assist smallholder farmers and traders in ensuring their crops have been adequately dried.


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    [9] European Chemicals Agency, 2017. Available from: https://echa.europa.eu/substance-information/-/substanceinfo/100.028.718.
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  • © 2017 the Author(s), licensee AIMS Press. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)
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