A Review on the Traditional Methods and Novel Techniques for Detection of Formaldehyde Concentration in Fish

Fish is an inevitable part of Kerala’s food style and around 3% of the State’s economy is attributed to Fisheries. The recent news that hit the headlines of Kerala was the seizing of formalin laced fish from many parts of Kerala. There are numerous conventional chemical methods for detecting formalin concentration in fish. The main drawback is that the majority of these techniques are time-consuming, tedious and destructive that requires welltrained operators and cannot be applied for on-field detection. In this current paper, the hazardous effects of formalin in human body, traditional methods used at present and the recently developed novel techniques for effective detection of formaldehyde concentration in fish, are analyzed. An overview of the conventional methods- chemical methods and microbial attributes are discussed. The novel techniques include high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), electrochemical biosensors, catalytic kinetic flurimetry technique, fluorescence spectroscopy, photonic crystal fiber based sensor, enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) technique and optical fiber bundle sensor. Also, the advantages of these techniques over traditional methods are pointed out. The novel techniques exhibit good linearity, stability, sensitivity, non-invasive, non-destructive and most of them have the potential to be developed as a portable device. Using this non-destructive technique, unethical means of food preservation can be monitored, thereby ensuring fish quality in Kerala. Even though there has been great advancement in this field, traditional methods are still dominant inpractical applications. It is high time that new techniques find their way out, because the quality of fish consumed by the people of this State is decreasing by a quick rate. Therefore, further efforts are necessary to facilitate early adoption of novel technologies in the fish industry and promote their standardization to complement or replace currentlegislation standards for the evaluation of fish quality.