Smelling Trouble At Sea

pdiaz writes: "Nature has an interesting article about detecting mines by their ...smell... before they are reached." Sort of a floating artificial nose -- looks cheaper than a hole in the boat.

Sensors that smell.

[Christopher Thomas]

This technology looks interesting, but I am curious if it will extend to odor-sensitive devices available for a wider range of scents. Imagine a security device that ensured that each person smelled right before allowing entry (similar to a dog, but not distracted by food).

...And then you switch to a different brand of deodourant...

While smell is probably too variable to use as a security device, sensors like this certainly exist. There was a flurry of annoucements over the past year about "biochip" sensor array that could measure more or less arbitrary sets of chemicals in air or water. You could also go the old-fashioned route and install a gas chromatograph in the building's entrance annex (briefcase-sized combined mass spectrometer/gas chromatograph devices were build for police use a few years back, though they're expensive as heck).

The usual application touted for this kind of multiple-chemical detector is medical diagnostics (measuring chemicals in the blood), but you could also use them as pollution guages, or in an improved breathalyzer, or as a pheromone sensor to let machines sense the moods of humans to a rough degree ("he's in a rotten mood; time to brew coffee").

It might or might not be possible to use the plastics mentioned in the article as wide-spectrum detectors. It would depend on how tailorable their responses are, and how selective the tailored responses can be made.

Re:Chemistry project

[Unknown Poltroon]

itll work jsut fine untill someone powders some explosives and sprays it offshore.

How about using dogs?

[TheLink]

Dogs can smell mines, but detecting mines a couple of miles away could be beyond them (what's the safe stopping distance for an aircraft carrier ;)).

It's pretty hard to smell something that dogs can't.

Cheerio,
Link.

Chemistry project

[AntiNorm]

Reminds me of a project my chemistry professor was working on a couple years ago. He was designing a mine-detection system that could sense as little as one molecule of explosive. IIRC, it involved a receptor chemical that would respond to TNT and only to TNT, and when TNT bonded to it, the minute change in mass would be detected and amplified by some sort of sensor (the details of this part escape me). His main job was to design the receptor chemical. Detecting TNT by smell would also work I guess, but it would take quite a bit more TNT.

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Check in...(OK!) Check out...(OK!)

Re:How about using dogs?

[Yazeran]

(what's the safe stopping distance for an aircraft carrier ;)). Well you wouldent necesarrily have to stop, just either detonate at safe distance or turn (which in case of a carrier might be problematic though)

Yours Yazeran

Plan: To go to Mars one day with a hammer!

the ocean has currents

[capt.Hij]

This is interesting and may be a great advance. The problem with chemical detection, however, is that it will only work with mines that are upstream in the ocean's currents. Also, the article focuses mostly on detection of older mines but does not give any indication of how big the problem is. If the problem is significant then what would happen in a body of water (such as the Persian Gulf) where the levels might be high throughout? Not going there may not be a military option!

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Chemical Smell agents?

[ehikory]

This technology looks interesting, but I am curious if it will extend to odor-sensitive devices available for a wider range of scents. Imagine a security device that ensured that each person smelled right before allowing entry (similar to a dog, but not distracted by food).