SOME people tell their doctors that they are non-smokers in a bid to get cheaper life insurance. But an electronic nose could scupper such deception.
A team led by Paul Thomas at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, tweaked a commercially available so that it would detect the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the breath of a person who had smoked a cigarette. The e-nose uses an array of 32 sensors whose electrical resistance changes as different VOCs are detected. The resultant 鈥渟mellprint鈥� correctly identified 37 out of 39 volunteers as either smokers or non-smokers (Journal of Breath Research, ).
The team conclude that e-noses could quickly and reliably reveal smokers without the need for a blood or urine test.
Advertisement
