Scientists develop electronic nose for smart phones (video)

Software developers have devised a smart phone application for diagnosing an illness.

According to the Daily Mail, the attachment is designed to work when used in conjunction with an 'electronic nose app', .

A team of researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), led by chemistry professor Nate Lewis, is working on a chemical vapour sensor that can detect odours like the human nose.
 

It is hoped that their research will result in an affordable, easy-to-carry detection system, ideally an advanced smart phone app.

The detection system works by pushing a stream of air through a liquid, such as butanol, which results in bubbles that come up as a saturated vapour.

This is then diluted and fed to a sensor chamber where the vapour is analysed and turned into raw data.
 

From this data the scientists are able to work out th chemicals contained in the initial stream of 'air'.