Impedance analysis of milk quality using functionalized polyamide textile-based sensor

Abstract

Present paper demonstrates design and characterization of a textile based microfluidic chip sensor for the detection of milk adulteration through measuring the real part of the impedance and impedance phase angle. Polyamide (PA) based textile fabric was chemically functionalized with polyaniline and titanium dioxide nanoparticles (PANI/TiO2) nanocomposite and embedded in the microfluidic chip. Prototyping of microfluidic chip was performed by xurography and hot lamination using polyvinyl chloride foils. Morphological and chemical properties of fabricated textile-based PA-PANI/TiO2 chip sensor were evaluated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Quality of milk was accessed with fabricated textile sensor using cow and goat milk samples. The electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) was applied to detect the change in resistance and phase angle of pure and diluted milk. The developed PA-PANI/TiO2 chip sensor acted as a variable resistor that was able to identify adulterations and spoilage of the milk samples with sensitivity of 0.06 degrees of phase angle variation per % of water dilution. Our work promises that application of textile electronics could be efficiently exploited for food safety, point-of-care and environment monitoring applications.