Saltquanti-Development of a new portable device to analyse salt content in food

Excessive salt intake is a growing concern in society, impacting on a number of serious clinical conditions, such as the development of hypertension and increased mortality/morbidity caused by cardiovascular diseases. The urgent need to introduce in situ assessment of the salt content of processed foods led to the development of SALTQUANTI, a portable device developed and patented by a consortium promoted by the company EVOLEO Technologies and the University of Porto, which combines sample preparation with the analytical detection by means of a sodium selective electrode with potentiometric detection. The device includes the milling and stirring process of the sample, together with the analytical measurement and data interpretation via a touch display. Data for the analytical validation of the method were obtained from 20 different processed food samples. The linearity of the method was in the range from 0.06 to 6.00 g salt/100 g food. The precision was of 6% on average, considering repeatability of results for different types of processed food and the accuracy was of 9% on average. Interlaboratorial comparison showed deviation of results of less than 20 % for the different types of samples. The analytical procedure proved to be simple and reliable, and automation enabled the analysis in less than 5 min with an acceptable uncertainty.