Basic tastes classification using thin-film transistors based on poly (3-hexylthiophene)

Three types of Organic Thin Film Transistors (OTFTs) based on poly-3-hexylthiophene (P3HT) were evaluated for discrimination of solutions from the four basic tastes: sweet, bitter, salty and sour. High-k titanium oxynitride dielectric was employed altogether with thermal silicon oxide and different channel geometries to improve taste identification. Tastants as sucrose, sodium chloride and hydrochloric acid were detected even below the human threshold. The present results demonstrate a good potential of these devices to operate under low voltage in aqueous media and to compose electronic tongues based in OTFTs for beverages and food classification.