Chinese-made Bionic Lidah Can Measure Chili's Welfare Level

Illustration of spicy food. (Freepic)

JAKARTA - For lovers of spicy food, the level of dredging is often a benchmark for pleasure. However, measuring how burning' a chili is not simple.

So far, the assessment of Welfare relies heavily on the human senses that are vulnerable to bias. This challenge encourages scientists to find ways to assess the spicy sensation more objectively and safely.

Researchers in China have now found a unique solution in the form of a bionic or artificial tongue capable of flooding' like humans. The gel-based technology is designed to provide a speedy and accurate assessment of the solidity without the need to involve test panels that have to deal with a burning feeling in the mouth.

It is this human panelist risk that a team of scientists from the East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST) wants to eliminate. They develop a bionic tongue by combining powder milk, acrylate acid, and chloride collins to form soft and bending gels.

The concept is inspired by a simple phenomenon: milk can relieve the spicy sensation. In this process, milk proteins bind capsaicin compounds that cause spicy taste in chilies and help relieve the heat. Similar principles are applied in the bionic gel, as described in a study published in ACS Sensors.

When capsaicin is attached to a milk protein in the gel, the compound turns into large clumps. This process slows down the movement of ion chloride and hydrogen, triggering a decrease in the electricity current. This change then serves as a traurdinator' to measure the level of well-tightness precision.

To test its accuracy, the team assessed eight types of chilies and made a fine scale from 0 (not spicy) to 70 (very spicy). The results of the artificial tongue measurements were then compared with experienced panelist assessments.

The results come as a surprise: the level of roughness produced by a bionic tongue is very close to human judgment, signaling its reliability and consistency.

According to the researchers, this technology has the potential to be an important step for controlling the quality of the food industry. In the future, this system can even be applied to humanoid robots and portable devices that can assess the spicy rate in real time.