Technology that is 100 nose lengths ahead of every sniffer dog.
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A dog's nose is a high-performance organ – in every sense of the phrase. It allows our four-legged friends to smell three metres deep into the ground- and eight meters under a blanket of snow. Inspired by this benchmark and driven by the goal of creating innovations at the limits of what is possible, we are working with the deep-tech start-up SmartNanotubes Technologies on a digital sense of smell — including market maturity.
The point of the matter.
A collaboration that has great things in store – the smell is literally in the air. With the E-Nose, we will be giving machines and devices a sense of smell in the near future. Our development is the electronic equivalent of the efficient sensory system of the human nose. The technology used is based on a tiny chip based on even smaller nanomaterials.
This multi-channel gas detector chip detects gases with a resolution in the ppb range and is 100 times more sensitive to any technology currently available. It is highly sensitive and analyses a variety of odours and volatile organic compounds. Using machine learning software tools, these odour patterns are then compared to distinguish between different gases and odours. For this purpose, we fill a database with references. We do this internally by collecting information from our current contacts about their areas of application. In addition, we want to encourage the developer community to help us identify interesting applications.
The right nose for ground-breaking possibilities.
It is conceivable to use the E-Nose in food processing, medical diagnostics or safety technology. In medicine, the digital nose can detect serious diseases at an early stage based on a person's breath. In exhaled air, there are about 200 organic compounds, which in their composition are as individual as a fingerprint.
This novel breath analysis approach will also be used in smartphones with increasing miniaturisation. In this way, it will be possible to unlock the device in a timely manner by means of breathing and to query a person's health status. The E-Nose also has an identical impact on industry. It is made for leakage detection. If toxic or explosive gases leak out in industrial plants, they can be detected and identified by the E-Nose at lightning speed.
With the E-Nose, we are redefining the science of smell — a sense of smell that is already well ahead of anything we know today.
