Can you measure the spicy taste of peppers with your smartphone?

The Scoville scale, which is the criterion for the spicy taste of pepper, is measured by dissolving the pepper extract in sugar water until the subject no longer feels distress. Recently, measurement methods using expensive equipment such as high performance liquid chromatography are also used. Instead of this measurement method, a portable device that can measure spicy taste simply by connecting it to a smartphone has appeared, attracting attention.

Capsaicin, the main component of hot peppers, is not only popular as a spice, but is also known to have various effects such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and carcinogenic effects. Recently, the demand for food additives and pharmaceuticals is also increasing. However, in order to accurately measure the spiciness of food using peppers and peppers, expensive large-scale equipment measurements were required so far.

The research team at Prince of Songkhla University in Thailand started developing a method to accurately and inexpensively measure capsaicin content and succeeded in developing Chilika-pod, a pepper-type portable device that can be connected to a smartphone and used on October 21, 2020. Announced.

The Chilikapot disposable sensor part uses graphene nanoplates coated with nitrogen atoms to improve conductivity. When capsaicin touches this sensor, an electric current is generated by oxidation and reduction reactions, and the capsaicin content is measured by sensing it.

The research team actually dissolved six samples of dried peppers in ethanol and measured the capsaicin concentration with a sensor for chilikapot. In addition, in the test using the diluted sample, it was confirmed that it can detect the concentration of 0.37 micromolar capsaicin.

The research team said in the paper that the results of chilikapot measurements were not significantly different from those measured by UV-visible spectroscopy.Therefore, this platform shows the possibility of developing a capsaicin portable sensor and a sensor that can expand various materials to be analyzed in the future. have. Related information can be found here .