Polyvinyl alcohol: A taste sensing material

There are reports of taste sensor fabrication by incorporating lipids in a PVC matrix. We have taken an attempt to prepare a taste sensor material by using a functionalized polymer. Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) has been modified to fabricate the sensor material. The research work covers polymer membrane preparation, morphology study, structural characterization of the membrane, and study of the taste sensing characteristics. The membrane was prepared by cross-linking polyvinyl alcohol with maleic acid. The cross-linked PVA was phosphorylated with POCl3. Polyvinyl alcohol membranes of suitable thickness were thus prepared with a good threshold sensing value and less swelling in water. FTIR spectroscopic analysis, XRD analysis and optical microscopy were done to get an idea about the structure and morphology of the polymer membranes. The sensor characteristics like temporal stability, response stability, response to different taste substances, and reproducibility of sensing performance were studied. The threshold concentrations of the membrane for Q-HCl, HCl, MSG, NaCl and sucrose were 0.01, 0.001, 0.08, 1, and 1 mM, respectively. These membrane threshold concentrations are below human threshold concentrations, which are 0.03, 0.9, 1.6, 30 and 170 mM for Q-HCl, HCl, MSG, NaCl and sucrose, respectively.