Researchers develop laser technology to test drinks for methanol

Adelaide University researchers have developed new technology using lasers to test alcoholic drinks for methanol without opening the bottle. Methanol poisoning kills hundreds of people each year, with high profile cases including the deaths of Australian teenagers, Bianca Jones and Holly Morton-Bowles in 2024. What's next? Researchers are confident the technology can be made handheld and used in settings like border control and warehouses to test drinks for methanol before they get to consumers. Researchers have developed laser-based technology that can detect chemicals like methanol, which killed two Australian teens overseas in 2024, without opening drink bottles. Methanol is a highly toxic alcohol that, when broken down by the human body, turns into formaldehyde and formic acid. It can be illegally added to alcoholic beverages, can also be accidentally created during poor-quality alcohol production and distillation and is a risk in some popular overseas destinations. Adelaide University researchers at the Centre of Light for Life have developed a way of shaping lasers to be able to determine if there is methanol inside sealed bottles. "We make a cone shaping and this allows us to go through the bottle and we avoid all the signals coming from the glass of the bottle," said PhD candidate Ané Kritzinger, "[Then] we change the colour, or the wavelength of the laser slightly, while we're taking measurements, and this allows us to pick up very small amounts of the methanol that's inside of the bottle. "With all of this combined we can detect methanol at a concentration of 0.2 per cent inside any bottle. It doesn't matter which colour the glass is and it doesn't matter whether it's whisky, or vodka or tequila inside the bottle." Real-life applications Ms Kritzinger said the gold standard for testing if alcohol had methanol in it was a process called chromatography, whereby containers of alcohol have to be opened and a sample needs to be tested in a lab. She said that would likely continue to be the case, but hoped the new technique would offer a more practical solution when they can make a smaller, more accessible device. "When we make this handheld, this could be used for example in distilleries, at bars, at border control; anywhere, really," said Dr Ralf Mouthaan, one of the other researchers. Ms Kritzinger said it could offer a proactive approach to testing for methanol, rather than reactive to events of people being exposed to methanol. "Having a machine like this and really checking before it reaches customers whether it's safe to drink," she said. "The technology is quite simple. "In practice, it should be able to be implemented in real life, and help people." Dr Mouthaan said they were also looking at other ways the technology could be used. "Here in South Australia, we're interested in the wine industry, where we'd like to combat fraud, or the olive oil industry, where we're interested in detecting contaminants in our olive oil," he said. Ms Kritzinger said it could be used down the line for counterfeit perfume or detecting trace amounts of chemicals and microplastics in food or drink.