Analytical Sciences

Taste Sensor: Electronic Tongue with Lipid Membranes

Xiao WU,* Yusuke TAHARA,* Rui YATABE,** and Kiyoshi TOKO*,***

*Research and Development Center for Five-Sense Devices, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishi, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan
**Graduate School and Faculty of Information Science and Electrical Engineering, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishi, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan
***Institute for Advanced Study, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishi, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan

Taste is of five basic types, namely, sourness, saltiness, sweetness, bitterness and umami. In this review, we focus on a potentiometric taste sensor that we developed and fabricated using lipid polymer membranes. The taste sensor can measure the taste perceived by humans and is called an electronic tongue with global selectivity, which is the property to discriminate taste qualities and quantify them without discriminating each chemical substance. This property is similar to the gustatory system; hence, the taste sensor is a type of biomimetic device. In this paper, we first explain the sensing mechanism of the taste sensor, its application to beer evaluation and the measurement mechanism. Second, results recently obtained are introduced; i.e., the application of the senor to high-potency sweeteners and the improvement of the bitterness sensor are explained. Last, quantification of the bitterness-masking effect of high-potency sweeteners is explained using a regression analysis based on both the outputs of bitterness and sweetness sensors. The taste sensor provides a biomimetic method different from conventional analytical methods.

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