Device Developed to Imitate Dog’s Nose for Detecting Explosives

Dogs are known for their olfactory sense. Imitating the same sense, scientists from the University of California in the third week of November 2012 designed the nanotech chip that can smell presence of the molecules from a bomb within a few seconds.

According to the researchers, this nanotech chip is portable, absolutely sensitive and accurate which can smell the vapours from the explosives as well as other substances. This could become very common in future just like the smoke detectors found in the public places.

Researchers who were led by professors Martin Moskovits and Carl Meinhart designed the detector which makes use of the microfluidic nanotechnology in order to imitate biological mechanism used behind canine scent receptors. This device is not just very sensitive for tracing the amount of specific vapour molecules but can also tell about specific substances besides the similar molecules.

The device has been designed with the similar or even better sensitivity just like the nose of the dogs. Results of the study depict that this device can also detect the airborne molecules of the 2, 4-dinitrotoluene, mainly the vapours which emanate from the TNT-based explosives.