Taste Sensor Using Ionic Polymer Metal Composite

Abstract

The usage of ionic polymer metal composite (IPMC) being an electroactive polymer is prevalent in different engineering applications. IPMC are synthetic composite nanomaterials which show artificial muscle behavior under applied voltage or electric impetus. When an electrical potential is applied across the two membranes, the positively charged conjugated and hydrated cations migrate toward the negative electrode. This migration creates an osmotic pressure gradient across the membrane; hence, the strip gets deformed or bent. On the other hand, IPMC strips are capable of generating electrical potential under the action of stretching or bending (thereby acting as a sensor). In this letter, the authors report the pragmatic application of the IPMC strip to study a taste sensor. The sensing characteristics of IPMC strips are applied to sense five general tastes (sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and spicy). Primarily, IPMCs are immersed into individual solutions and kept for 15 min for doping action. Thus, different solutions having distinct concentration of ions will lead to distinct identifications. In this present investigation, the authors have instigated the IPMC strip as a sensor; when an IPMC strip is bent or deformed, an analogous voltage in the range of millivolts is generated across the membranes. Second, clammy IPMCs are bent in the clockwise and again in the counterclockwise direction (10°) to record the corresponding voltage. A set of experimental data was collected, which divulged unique characteristics for different solutions pertinent to different tastes. Thus, IPMC strips are able to recognize different taste senses.