Scientists develop an electronic nose capable of identifying and differentiating between odors: this is how it works.

This technology could be used in the future to monitor air quality, detect polluting gases, or even for medical diagnostics.

A team of researchers has developed an innovative electronic nose that can identify odors with unprecedented accuracy. This invention could open up new scenarios in important areas such as health , Industry and environmental monitoring . The researchers are from the Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies (IMDEA Nanoscience) and the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan.

The research, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society , explains how this artificial nose works: its technology is based on gas sensors that act as an artificial olfactory system . The system is made up of small, single-walled carbon tubes that react when they come into contact with certain gases. Thanks to a special coating, it can differentiate between the substances it detects .

Carbon tubes have a surface that makes them extremely sensitive to the presence of molecules , and researchers encountered the problem that, due to this high sensitivity, they had very little ability to distinguish between different gases. To overcome this problem, the scientists coated the tiny tubes with ring-shaped molecules.

Thanks to this technique, they can better differentiate between them when mixed with other substances, and among the substances they can detect are compounds such as ammonia, nitrogen dioxide, and acetone vapor . Furthermore, by having a thinner layer, several components were able to increase their sensitivity tenfold and respond more quickly to stimuli.

The results, which were published in the aforementioned publication, have confirmed that these sensors can be tuned to specifically detect the desired compounds. This means that this technology could be used in the future to monitor air quality, detect polluting gases, or even in medical diagnostics through breath analysis.