Methyl mercaptan is easily detectable by the human nose © Shutterstock
Scientists in Canada have used an inkjet-printer to create sensors that give off a smell when a target biomolecule is present.
Visual outputs, such as fluorescence and colour changes, are what indicate a positive reading in most sensors. Carlos Filipe and his team at McMaster University, however, have come up with a sensor where the output comes in the form of a smell. ‘People use the sense of smell in their everyday-lives but this fact has been largely under-explored for analytical purposes. A very convenient aspect of using smell is that a person or user does not have to be constantly looking at a read-out or a display to get a signal, the signal will come to the user.’
Read the full article in Chemistry World»
Read the original journal article in Analyst – it’s free to access until 3rd October:
An inkjet-printed bioactive paper sensor that reports ATP through odour generation
Zhuyuan Zhang, Jingyun Wang, Robin Ng, Yingfu Li, Zaisheng Wu, Vincent Leung, Spencer Imbrogno, Robert Pelton, John D. Brennan and Carlos D. M. Filipe
Analyst, 2014, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C4AN01113A, Communication
