A handheld “electronic nose” capable of detecting chemical changes in drinks within seconds has taken its latest strides.
Scensai is an invention that could give distilleries, breweries, wineries and other drinks producers rapid insight directly on the production floor.
Led by Marcus Campbell Bannerman and Ammar Elhoweris at the University of Aberdeen, the venture is developing an affordable portable sensor designed to flag subtle changes in a product before they become costly quality issues, reducing reliance on lengthy specialist laboratory analysis.
Marcus Campbell Bannerman, project lead for Scensai, said: “Scensai is developing a handheld chemical analyser for the food and beverage industry that looks at product quality issues.
“For example, whisky manufacturers might use our device to detect sour casks before they’re filled, preventing that quality issue from maturing into a loss many years down the line.”
He said that for many, accurate chemical analysis usually requires expensive lab equipment, which makes it out of reach for a lot of producers and means many quality issues are overlooked.
Campbell Bannerman added: “Our innovation is in the software, which takes low-cost chemical sensors and transforms them into an accurate chemical analyser, making this kind of analysis much more accessible.
“We’re overjoyed. It’s super exciting and such a big privilege. We felt like we’d made it just getting here.”
The device has been conceived as a practical new layer of quality control, giving production teams immediate, objective information to sit alongside their existing expertise and sensory judgement.
By identifying distinctive chemical signatures, it could help producers spot contamination or unexpected changes that may affect an entire batch, creating unnecessary waste, additional testing and potentially significant commercial losses.
The company’s ambition is to bring capabilities traditionally associated with specialist laboratory equipment into a portable system that can be used where products are actually made.
Its sensor captures information about a sample’s chemical profile, with accompanying software analysing the results and flagging when something has changed.
The initial focus is the drinks sector, where tightly controlled production and consistency are central to maintaining quality across successive batches.
Rather than replacing the judgement of experienced production teams, the system is being developed to give businesses an earlier warning when something needs closer attention.
