'Safe to eat semiconductor' made from pigments found in toothpaste
Researchers from the Politecnico di Milano (Italy) and the University of Novi Sad (Serbia) have created an edible semiconductor using copper (II) phthalocyanine (CuPc), a substance found in toothpaste as a whitening agent. According to the researchers, it is possible for the device to function stably for more than a year as an electrolyte-gated transistor operating at less than 1 volt.
A Fully Edible Transistor Based on a Toothpaste Pigment - Feltri - Advanced Science - Wiley Online Library
Researchers build a fully edible transistor using tooth-whitening pigments found in toothpaste | Tom's Hardware
Capsule endoscopes are medical devices that are swallowed, but they only have a camera, so although they can take photos and videos of the inside of the digestive tract, they have the disadvantage of not being able to perform anything other than visual examinations.
If edible semiconductors existed, they could be used for early diagnosis and monitoring by incorporating sensors into capsule endoscopes to detect enzyme levels and other body chemical functions.
What the researchers have developed this time is a 'semiconductor that is safe to eat' using CuPc, a compound also found in toothpaste.
CuPc is found in toothpaste as a whitening agent, and if you brush your teeth twice a day, you're ingesting about 1 mg of it. If you had the amount of CuPc you ingested while brushing your teeth, you could make more than 12,500 'edible semiconductors.'
The research team demonstrated an edible electrolyte-gate transistor that operates at a low voltage of less than 1 volt using CuPc, and showed good reproducibility and stable performance for more than a year. They say this paves the way for edible integrated circuits, which will be an important component of edible electronic systems in the future.
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