%0 Journal Article
%T Electronic Nose Based on Nanomaterials: Issues, Challenges, and Prospects
%A Niranjan S. Ramgir
%J ISRN Nanomaterials
%D 2013
%R 10.1155/2013/941581
%X The ability to precisely control the morphology and dimension coupled with the tunable surface reactivity has led to the widespread investigation of nanomaterials for various device applications. The associated high surface area to volume ratio implies that large numbers of atom are residing on the surface and are available for interaction. Accordingly, nanomaterials have demonstrated the potential to realize sensors with ultrahigh sensitivities and fast response kinetics. The smaller size further provides the possibility of miniaturization and integration of large number of devices. All these properties makes them an attractive candidate for the fabrication of electronic nose or e-nose. E-nose is an intelligent chemical-array sensor system that mimics the mammalian olfactory system. The present paper critically reviews the recent development in the field of nanomaterials based e-nose devices. In particular, this paper is focused on the description of nanomaterials for e-nose application, specifically on the promising approaches that are going to contribute towards the further development of this field. Various issues related to successful utilization of different nanomaterials for commercial application are discussed, taking help from the literature. The review concludes by briefing the important steps taken towards the commercialization and highlighting the loopholes that are still to be addressed. 1. Introduction The term ˇ°electronic noseˇ± was coined in 1988 by Gardner and Bartlett wherein they defined e-nose (EN) as ˇ°an instrument which comprises an array of electronic chemical sensors with partial specificity and appropriate pattern recognition system, capable of recognizing simple, or complex odorsˇ± [1, 2]. It is interesting to note that not everything that can be measured with the help of EN has a smell or odor and hence sometimes the word can be misleading. More appropriately it can be defined as ˇ°an intelligent chemical-array sensor system that mimics the mammalian olfactory systemˇ± (Figure 1) [3¨C5]. It is important to note that EN functions are less in comparison to that of human nose applications as they are mostly developed for desired applications. That is to say that an EN nose developed for biosensor cannot be used for other applications like food quality or environmental monitoring. ENs are application specific, that is, an all purpose ideal EN is not available. EN can however be used for more applications wherein the sensor array employed needs to generate a response. For example, EN developed for chemical sensors can be used for
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/isrn.nanomaterials/2013/941581/