Construction, working and applications of E-tongue: a versatile tool for all tastes?
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Abstract
An Electronic Tongue or E-tongue is defined as a bio-mimicking sensor generally meant to mimic the ability to taste sweet, sour, bitter and salty compounds and quantify each of these compounds. In an E-tongue, there are counter/sensing electrodes and a reference electrode. The current generated between the electrodes or the change in the resistance of the electrodes is used as an input for a mathematical model and with the help of computer simulations, the taste or the nature of the compound is analyzed. This type analysis is usually seen in systems using electrodes modified with advanced nanocomposites such as graphene, CNT, nobel metals, PEDOT:PSS, molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) etc. Here the tendency of the sample to resist the flow of electrons from the working electrode to the reference electrode is measured with input signals constantly varying in frequency and amplitude. This review article discusses the methods and construction of E-tongues as well as their application across various fields. We shall discuss the experimental details of various types of E-Tongue used in different solutions and their results. E-tongues have an important role in wine tasting today as their ability to breakdown the compound and individually analyze the components of the compounds with excellent unparalleled accuracy. Usage of E-tongues in heavy metal detection is an incredible way of testing for water pollutants. E-tongues provide a radical new method of testing and experimentation in a very short period of time mainly due to the ability of nanoparticles that they employ and their revolutionary fabrication methods. Their efficiency and accuracy only seems to be getting better by employing ANNs and other pattern recognition algorithms as a part of their implementation. Finally the review summarises, challenge to researchers about the e-tongue, a viable technology in today’s rapidly evolving fast lifestyle that has the potential to cause massive impacts in the field of medical electronics, food testing, pollution control.
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Electronic tongue, Food quality, Artificial Neural Network, Nanomaterials, Sensors, Bio sensors, Chemical Sensors, Gas sensors
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