NEW technology developed at University of Technology Sydney can help obviate the COVID-19 symptom of a loss of sense of smell or taste - at least when it comes to whisky.
The "electronic nose" is able to distinguish between different brands, origins and styles of the alcoholic beverage by "sniffing" the liquor.
Of course it's not actually been developed to help COVID-19 patients, but rather as a way of ensuring that fraudsters don't get away with substituting cheap stuff for the real thing.
"Up until now, detecting the differences between whiskies has required either a trained whisky connoisseur, who might still get it wrong, or complex and time-consuming chemical analysis by scientists in a lab," said study leader, Associate Professor Steven Su.
"So to have a rapid, easy-to-use, real-time assessment of whisky to identify the quality, and uncover any adulteration or fraud, could be very beneficial for both high-end wholesalers and purchasers," he said.
The prototype system called NOS.E is designed to mimic the human olfactory system, using eight gas sensors to detect odours and generate a "unique signal matrix," with the technology also having applications in disease detection.
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