Recently, Chinese news site of Wiley reportedElectronic Noses: from Advanced Materials to Sensors Aided with Data Processing,a systematic review of Xidian University in the field of electronic nose/artificial olfaction. The review article was jointly published by Associate Professor Wu Weiwei, Jian Yingying (Master's degree), Dr. Ren Cong, Dr. Bai Xiaoxia, and Professor Hossam Haick of School of Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology; Dr. Hu Wenwen and Professor Jin Ke of the Institute of space, Dr. Yao Mingshui ofFujian Institute of Research on the Structure, Associate Professor Wan Liangtian of Dalian University of Technology, and Associate Professor Su Xinghua of Chang'an University.

Artificial olfaction/electronic noses have a great potential in mimicking the human olfactory organ to recognize different types of gases and density. Since its development, it received close attention from scientific and industrial community. It has an application potential in a range of fields, including environment monitoring, disease diagnosis, public security affairs, robotics, agricultural production, food industry, etc. However, different from increasingly mature artificial vision which depends on wavelength and brightness distribution, artificial hearing which depends on pitch, volume and tone, and artificial touch which depends on strains and stresses, artificial olfaction/electronic noses have enormous challenge in accurately recognizing smell, because gas to be measured usually consists of different types of gas with different density.

Considering current situation and further development, the paper discussed progress in terms of devices of artificial olfaction/electronic noses, as well as application and data processing, pointed out obstacles and challenges of the field, and put forward further development trends and solutions.Firstly, the review discussed the extensive application and latest development of electronic nose in fields of medical treatment, food, environment, public security and agriculture production; Then, the review concluded basic building blocks which mimicthe olfactory receptors of electronic noses(gas sensors) includingChemo-resistive Gas Sensors,solid-state electrochemical sensors, field-effect transistor (FET) sensors and quartz crystal microbalance (QCM)Basedsensors; Finally, the review presented the history and current situation of the combination of data algorithms and sensors for odor recognition.

The author thinks deeply about the challenges faced by the application of electronic nose, including how to further improve sensitivity, selectivity, accurateness of odor mimic and the performance of synchronous test, and how to prevent baseline drift, reduce size of electronic nose and power consumption. Meanwhile, the author pointed out how to overcome the above difficulties.

Source: Materials Views

Links to relative paper and report:

Link to the paper:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/admt.201800488

Link to the news report:

http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ISgYKH1Vdqz0XWMqXZ0XhQ