Capturing the essence

Engineers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology are building a device that can record an odour and reproduce it with non-toxic chemicals.

According to a report in the New Scientist, the odour recorder can provide a much wider range of odours than previous attempts because it doesn't use pre-prepared smells. Instead, the system will use 15 chemical-sensing microchips to pick up a broad range of aromas. These will then create a digital recipe from a set of 96 chemicals. To replay a smell, drops from the relevant vials are mixed, heated and vaporised.

Team member Pambuk Somboon says that the system has already recorded and replayed the smell of orange, lemon, apple, banana and melon.