Detection of Environmental Hormones with Electrode Polarity Controlled Method

It has been noticed recently that there is a possibility of elution of chemical substances from packages of foods. The chemicals act as harmful substances such as environmental hormones for biological bodies at very low concentration. It is therefore necessary to develop a sensing device, which can detect such substances easily and quickly. The purpose of the present study is high sensitive measurement of environmental hormones using electrode polarity controlling method. The responding ability of the polarity-controlled sensor covers various chemicals from electrolytes to nonelectrolytes and from hydrophilic to hydrophobic substances. As a result, we could sensitively detect bisphenol-A at about 50 ppb and dibutyl phthalate at about 3 ppb, and the sensor could distinguish such chemicals from ordinary taste substances.