Monitoring of milk quality with disposable taste sensor

Abstract

A disposable screen-printed multi channel taste sensor composed of several types of lipid as transducers and a computer as data analyzer could detect taste in a manner similar to human gustatory sensation. The disposable taste sensor was used to measure the electrical potential resulted from the interaction between lipid membranes and taste substances. In the present study, two types of packaged commercial milk, the ultra high temperature (UHT) and the pasteurized milk were tested. It was found that the disposable taste sensor is capable to discriminate reliably between fresh and spoiled milk and to follow the deterioration of the milk quality when it is stored at room temperature based on a pattern recognition principle namely Principle Component Analysis (PCA). This research could provide a new monitoring method ideally for simple and cheap decentralized testing for controlling the quality of milk, which may be of great use in the dairy industries. © 2003 by MDPI.