Electronic Tongue-A Tool for All Tastes?

Electronic tongue systems are traditionally used to analyse: food products, water samples and taste masking technologies for pharmaceuticals. In principle, their applications are almost limitless, as they are able to almost completely reduce the impact of interferents and can be applied to distinguish samples of extreme complexity as for example broths from different stages of fermentation. Nevertheless, their applications outside the three principal sample types are, in comparison, rather scarce. In this review, we would like to take a closer look on what are real capabilities of electronic tongue systems, what can be achieved using mixed sensor arrays and by introduction of biosensors or molecularly imprinted polymers in the matrix. We will discuss future directions both in the sense of applications as well as system development in the ever-growing trend of low cost analysis.

Electrochemical Glucose Sensing: Is There Still Room for Improvement?

As diabetes is considered one of the biggest health care challenges of the coming decades substantial effort is being made to develop novel glucose monitoring systems, this includes thousands of articles which are being published every year. To the question in the title, we answer an unequivocal "yes" but maybe not necessarily in the areas where most of the published research is focused.