Systematic evaluation of electronic taste sensing systems for pharmaceutical analysis and formulation development

Electronic tongues are potentiometric sensor array systems which are increasingly used for taste assessment of pharmaceutical formulations. Within this thesis a systematic evaluation of these systems was conducted including performance qualification, a comparison between the systems which are commercially available, as well as formulation development and application to quality control. New protocols for rational development of liquid formulations based on electronic tongue data were introduced according to a bottom-up- and top-down-approach. Overall, electronic taste sensing systems were assessed to be promising tools for rational formulation development and the newly introduced protocols offer the opportunity to be transferred to development of liquid formulations containing unpleasant tasting APIs.