Dive Brief:
- C2Sense has developed a chip that will enable computers to smell, which the company plans to use to sniff out spoiling food.
- C2Sense’s chip can "smell" ethylene, a gas from spoiling fruit that can hasten the spoilage process for other fruits around it, even in trace amounts that a human couldn't detect.
- "A wholesaler might use these sensors to monitor crates of fruit and move those that are starting to ripen before they spread ethylene to every other crate in the warehouse," WIRED reported.
Dive Insight:
Previous sensors that could detect ethylene were often either too expensive or not always accurate outside the laboratory. C2Sense's co-founder and CTO Jan Schnorr told WIRED it has developed an affordable sensor that can detect low levels of ethylene without false positives.
C2Sense has also modified its ethylene sensor to detect other gases, such as the amines released by meat or ammonia, with up to four gases able to be "smelled" by a single chip.
With this kind of technology, companies could better monitor products to prevent or alleviate food spoilage in processing plants and warehouses, lessening the impact of food waste at the manufacturing level.