Sensors 2013, 13(1), 1076-1084; doi:10.3390/s130101076
Development of a Portable Taste Sensor with a Lipid/Polymer Membrane
1
Graduate School of Information Science and Electrical Engineering, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishi-ku, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan
2
Kyushu Institute of Technology, Fukuoka 804-8550, Japan
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Received: 14 December 2012 / Revised: 14 January 2013 / Accepted: 14 January 2013 / Published: 16 January 2013
(This article belongs to the Special Issue State-of-the-Art Sensors Technology in Japan 2012)
Abstract
We have developed a new portable taste sensor with a lipid/polymer membrane and conducted experiments to evaluate the sensor’s performance. The fabricated sensor consists of a taste sensor chip (40 mm × 26 mm × 2.2 mm) with working and reference electrodes and a portable sensor device (80 mm × 25 mm × 20 mm). The working electrode consists of a taste-sensing site comprising a poly(hydroxyethyl)methacrylate (pHEMA) hydrogel layer with KCl as the electrolyte layer and a lipid/polymer membrane as the taste sensing element. The reference electrode comprises a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) membrane layer with a small hole and a pHEMA layer with KCl. The whole device is the size of a USB memory stick, making it suitable for portable use. The sensor’s response to tannic acid as the standard astringency substance showed good accuracy and reproducibility, and was comparable with the performance of a commercially available taste sensing system. Thus, it is possible for this sensor to be used for in-field evaluations and it can make a significant contribution to the food industry, as well as in various fields of research. View Full-Text
Figure 1
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0).
Scifeed alert for new publications
Never miss any articles matching your research from any publisher- Get alerts for new papers matching your research
- Find out the new papers from selected authors
- Updated daily for 49'000+ journals and 6000+ publishers
- Define your Scifeed now
Share & Cite This Article
MDPI and ACS Style
Tahara, Y.; Nakashi, K.; Ji, K.; Ikeda, A.; Toko, K. Development of a Portable Taste Sensor with a Lipid/Polymer Membrane. Sensors 2013, 13, 1076-1084.