Noses in development
Drones with electronic noses have been developed by Spanish researchers to measure nuisant odors in purification plants. The electronic nose weighs 1.3 kilo and consists of a box with a small hole through which air is drawn in and a vacuum pump that empties the box after a measurement. The box itself contains 21 gas sensors, which detect ammonia, hydrogen sulphide (the well-known rotten egg smell), methane and 18 other compounds that humans categorize as stinking. These measurements are sent to a computer via WiFi, together with the location, so that the source can be determined. However, this electronic cannot register (yet) which of the compounds and how much of it is in the air. If you want to read more, here is the link.
This news reminded me of the bionose that we have been trying to develop with BSc students to detect the presence of pathogenic yeasts in hospitals, using a combination of different insect antennae as the detector. Insect antennae are much more sensitive than any human-designed chemical instrument, even the most sensitive gas chromatograph or mass spectrometer. When placing an antenna between two electrodes, detection of volatiles can be measured by a change in electropotential that occurs when an odor molecule attaches to the olfactory receptor. As different groups of insects have different olfactory receptors, the students used a combination of 4-5 different insect antennae with which they were able to create a neural network that could distinguish between different yeast species with some accuracy. Unfortunately, I cannot give any link yet, as we haven’t been able to produce enough data for a publication yet. For those who are interested in the development of other bionoses, this may be an interesting further read.
Written by Astrid Groot
Hi Astrid thankyou for sharing news about the bionose you’ve been developing with students and about the electronic nose being developed Spanish researchers to measure nuisance odours in purification plants.
We are artists Raewyn Turner & Brian Harris in New Zealand and we’ve been working with olfactory art since 2011. We’ve developed our own electronic nose in a work called Fallible to detect the odours of non-scented flowers. Similar to the Spanish researcher’s one ours can only indicate the existence of odourants rather than which ones they are. In a glass funnel are 3 gas sensors behind which is fan that draws air past the sensors–any odourous molecules cause a change in voltage in the sensors and this is sent to a microprocessor which produces 3 midi signals that are played as piano chords. http://www.raewynturner.com/projects#/fallible-raewyn-turner-brian-harris
The electronic nose was originally tested in the labs at Monell Chemical Senses Centre, Philadelphia during my art residency there in 2011 https://vimeo.com/35656353.
Very interesting, Raewyn, thank you for sharing! Translating the detection of odours into acoustic signals is new to me. Maybe this could be(come) useful to detect toxic gases or pollutants..? The piano notes are in some parts pretty beautiful. Cool project!