Design and fabrication of a portable instrument based on elastic fiber/nano‐polypyrrole for evaluating of tensile properties of food samples

Abstract In this study, polypyrrole nanoparticles were synthesized by chemical methods on polyester elastic substrates. SEM images represent the uniform distribution of polypyrrole nanoparticles. Using polypyrrole modified fiber, the analysis system was designed and used as a portable texture analyzer to measure the mechanical properties of food samples. In the designed system, there was a linear and significant relationship between the changes of applied force and the electrical resistance of the elastic fiber. In this device, changes in the applied force can be obtained by tracking changes in electrical resistance. After obtaining a linear relationship between the force and electrical resistance changes for each fiber, the optimal sensor was selected by high sensitivity, the lower detection limit, and higher R 2 . Subsequently, for the validation of designed device, the biodegradable films based on different materials were used. The results obtained from the designed device and the texture analyzer showed that the designed device has high accuracy and error rate of less than 10%, which indicates the matching of the data obtained from the texture analyzer and the designed device. These results suggest the ability to use a designed device instead of the texture analyzer device to analysis mechanical properties of food samples. Practical application The designed device is very cheap and easy to work with. The device is easily capable of measuring mechanical properties such as stress–strain curves, fracture force, and tensile strength in food products and biodegradable polymers. Due to its portability, this device is capable of on‐site analysis and reduces the cost of material analysis to a great extent.