EXPLOITATION OF MICROWAVE SYSTEM FOR CONTROL OF INSECT INFESTATION IN RICE GRAIN

Abstract

Microwave heating has a potential to disinfest insect in rice grain. This method can be an alternative and a safe method to replace the current use of fumigant types of chemicals. Microwave leaves no chemical residue to hazard human health and safe for environment. A microwave system were developed using domestic microwave oven embedded with an Arduino microcontroller plus a switching circuit to study the effect of microwave energy applied to the infested rice grain. The microwave frequency used in the study was a standard 2.45MHz magnetron. The microcontroller was programmed to maintain the temperature at 50 º – 65 ºC and duration is set at 2 – 3 minutes per cycle of exposure. The experiments were carried out to monitor the effect of microwave on spawning process and the mortality rate of adult insect. In this study, two types of rice samples were selected and examined as microwave treated and non-treated (control) stored at room temperature to monitor the activity of insect periodically. It was found that the microwave treated samples shows the reduction in the insect growth rate in comparison to the non-treated rice sample. The preliminary analysis was performed to identify the effectiveness of microwave usage for rice treatment in order to provide an alternative method for food preservation electronically. Finally, it was found that the microwave technology has its own advantages which may certainly be used for control of insect infestation as in this study for rice samples specifically.