VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Rice is the staple food of most Indonesians. Therefore, the availability and quality of rice become very important. In general, clean and fragrant white rice is categorized as high quality rice. However, people should be careful and sure of the use of chemicals as rice bleach. The use of rice bleach is certainly not good and harmful to health. To know the existence of bleach in rice, two students of Sebelas Maret University (UNS) Surakarta have created a tool called SCRAPER, orthe Smart Chlorinated Rice Portable Detector based on microcontrol Atmega8535 and Light Dependent Resistor (LDR). They are Intan Mulia Rahayu from Food Science and Technology Studies Faculty of Agriculture and Kevin Ikhwan Muhammad (Chemical Engineering). According to Intan, using chlorine as bleaching agent is very dangerous for health. Chlorine can damage blood cells, disrupt liver function, and damage the respiratory system. When using chlorine reaching 3-5 ppm in rice or even reaching a dose of more than 30 ppm, it can cause death. SCRAPER appears to address market issues about the rampant unscrupulous sellers of rice that deliberately add bleach / chlorine to low quality of rice. With chlorine, the rice looks clean,and white like,the super quality but most consumers cannot distinguish rice that contains bleach or not. This innovation was featured at the Thailand International Inventors Day 2018 International Innovation Competition held at Bangkok International Trade and Exhibition Center (BITEC), Thailand from 2-6 February 2018. Both students also won a special award from the World Invention Intellectual Property Association (WIIPA). Intan, who is chairwoman of the research team, said that her side hopes that this innovation tool can be useful for the community in a bid to prevent the consumption of unhealthy rice, and can assist the government in the inspection of rice sellers in the market. The competition was organized by the National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT) with the International Federation of Inventor's Associations (IFIA) and the World Invention Intellectual Property Association (WIIPA). The Thailand Inventors Day is held annually to showcase the potential of innovation and discoveries from international innovators. The event was attended by 24 countries, including Indonesia, Canada, China, Egypt, Hong Kong, India, Iran and Japan.