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This story is from the category Sensors
Date posted: 18/08/2009 In a new approach to an effective "electronic tongue" that mimics human taste, scientists in Illinois are reporting development of a small, inexpensive, lab-on-a-chip sensor that quickly and accurately identifies sweetness ? one of the five primary tastes. It can identify with 100 percent accuracy the full sweep of natural and artificial sweet substances, including 14 common sweeteners, using easy-to-read color markers. This sensory "sweet-tooth" shows special promise as a simple quality control test that food processors can use to ensure that soda pop, beer, and other beverages taste great, ? with a consistent, predictable flavor. Their study was described here today at the American Chemical Society's 238th National Meeting. The new sensor, which is about the size of a business card, can also identify sweeteners used in solid foods such as cakes, cookies, and chewing gum. In the future, doctors and scientists could use modified versions of the sensor for a wide variety of other chemical-sensing applications ranging from monitoring blood glucose levels in people with diabetes to identifying toxic substances in the environment, the researchers say. "We take things that smell or taste and convert their chemical properties into a visual image," says study leader Kenneth Suslick, Ph.D., of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "This is the first practical "electronic tongue" sensor that you can simply dip into a sample and identify the source of sweetness based on its color." See the full Story via external site: www.physorg.com Most recent stories in this category (Sensors): 01/05/2013: Breath study brings roadside drug testing closer |
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