10 Minute to Detect Formalin

10 Minutes to Detect Formalin

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on August 03, 2010

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Prof. Chanif MahdiOn Tuesday (3 / 8), Universitas Brawijaya has inaugurated a professor of Biochemistry as a new science. Prof. Dr. Ir Chanif Mahdi MS has invented a tool that can detect formaldehyde content. The disclosure of the use of formalin in food nowadays, makes people worried about their health and chooses food more selectively. The community's concern inspires the lecturer from the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences (FMIPA UB) to create a tester that is able to detect the content of formalin in foods.

Chanif called the unique tester as FMR or Formalin Main Reagent. Commonly the formalin test in laboratory takes more than a week, but FMR takes only in minutes. "Just 10 minutes, the formalin can be detected," said the man who was born in Tuban, 12 April 1952.

The process of formalin test using FMR is quite easy. Food that will be detected is cut into small pieces, then placed in FMR solution and shaked it. "If the solution's color changed to red and even purple, it means that it contains formalin. The darker the color, the higher the content of formalin," said Siti Chumaiyah's husband.

He has done some experiments on several types of food such as meatball and a variety of marine fish. After further experiments, apparently his tester had a quite small test error rate, only 0.001 percent. Chanif claims that his product has been used by several universities in Malang, Surabaya and Jakarta for research. Although it has not been socialized to local POM Service, some unofficial agencies have already known this product.

By the invention of this tool, Chanif hopes that he has already participated in the effort to prevent the circulation of formalin in food. That is way Chanif does not ask expensive cost to the consumers who are interested in using the FMR. With a price between 30 to 50 thousand rupiahs, people can detect formalin by themselves. Chanif does not even hesitate to give FMR freely to people who really need it but does not have much money to buy it. "If our inventions are used frequently, it means that our knowledge is also more useful, isn't it? If it is calculated as perpetual charity, I think it is already a royalty for me," he said.

Chanif has not only invented FMR. The father of two daughters had also invented testers for other dangerous food's substances such as borax, rhodamine (lipstick's dyed), and iodine in salt. "So far the only tool that has been patented is iodine tester, others are still in process," said the alumni (2008) of doctoral program from UB's postgraduate in medical science majoring biomedics.