The bio-electronic tongue helps 'taste' the sweetness

Experts have developed a new device that evaluates sweetness objectively, 10 times more sensitive than older bio-electronic devices.

A dish that is sweet to one person may be too sweet to another. Meanwhile, food and beverage companies need to objectively determine the sweetness of their products. An experimental new bio-electronic blade could help do this in the future, New Atlas reported on February 4.

Chamomile tea is one of the solutions used in the bioelectronic tongue test to assess sweetness.

Currently, the sweetness and other characteristics of foods and beverages are being evaluated by expert tasting groups. Although such groups can reach a general consensus on the sweetness of the product, the assessment is still highly subjective.

The human tongue has sweet-tasting receptors with two large, complex structures that bind to compounds such as sugars. The outermost part of one of these structures is called the venus flytrap domain because its molecular structure resembles the leaves of a flytrap plant. This region interacts with most sweeteners that humans consume.

In a new study in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, a team of scientists at Seoul National University, South Korea, led by Tai Hyun Park and Seunghun Hong, used bacteria to create replicas of fly-trapping sites. . Duplicates are placed in thin layers on multiple gold electrodes, linked together via carbon nanotubes. The receiving device is called a field-effect transistor.

When added to a solution containing sucrose or saccharin - an artificial sweetener, the current flowing through the device will decrease consistently. The greater the concentration of sucrose or saccharin, the lower the current decreases. Field-effect transistors will not react when exposed to cellobiose, a tasteless sugar.

Experts used a prototype of a bio-electronic tongue to evaluate the sweetness of drinks such as apple juice and chamomile tea for sucrose. The device, they say, is 10 times more sensitive than older bioelectronic systems.