Chemical Sensing at the Robot Fingertips: Toward Automated Taste Discrimination in Food Samples.

The development of robotic sensors that mimic the human sensing capabilities is critical for the interaction and cognitive abilities of modern robots. Though robotic skin with embedded pressure or temperature sensors has received recent attention, robotic chemical sensors have long been unnoticed due to the challenges associated with realizing chemical sensing modalities on robotic platforms. For realizing such chemically sensitive robotic skin, we exploit here the recent advances in wearable chemical sensor technology and flexible electronics, and describe chemical sensing robotic fingers for rapid screening of food flavors and additives. The stretchable taste-sensing finger electrochemical devices are printed on the robotic glove, which simulates the soft skin, and are integrated with a wireless electronic board for real-time data transmission. The printed middle, index, and ring robotic fingers allow accurate discrimination between sweetness, sourness, and spiciness, via direct electrochemical detection of glucose, ascorbic acid, and capsaicin. The sweet-sensing ability has been coupled with a caffeine-sensing robotic finger for rapid screening of the presence of sugar and caffeine in common beverages. The "sense of taste" chemically sensitive robotic technology thus enables accurate discrimination between different flavors, as was illustrated in numerous tests involving a wide range of liquid and solid food samples. Such realization of advanced wearable taste-sensing systems at the robot fingertips should pave the way to automated chemical sensing machinery, facilitating robotic decision for practical food assistance applications, with broad implications to a wide range of robotic sensing applications.

Edible Electrochemistry: Food Materials Based Electrochemical Sensors.

This study demonstrates the first example of completely food-based edible electrochemical sensors. The new edible composite electrodes consist of food materials and supplements serving as the edible conductor, corn, and olive oils as edible binders, vegetables as biocatalysts, and food-based packing sleeves. These edible composite electrodes are systematically characterized for their attractive electrochemical properties, such as potential window, capacitance, redox activity using various electrochemical techniques. The sensing performance of the edible carbon composite electrodes compares favorably with that of "traditional" carbon paste electrodes. Well defined voltammetric detection of catechol, uric acid, ascorbic acid, dopamine, and acetaminophen is demonstrated, including sensitive measurements in simulated saliva, gastric fluid, and intestinal fluid. Furthermore, successful biosensing applications are realized by incorporating a mushroom and horseradish vegetable tissues with edible carbon pastes for imparting biocatalytic activity toward the biosensing of phenolic and peroxide compounds. The attractive sensing performance of the new edible sensors indicates considerable promise for physiological monitoring applications and for developing edible and ingestible devices for diverse biomedical applications.