The Smell of Trouble
Industrial tools must be monitored daily for wear and tear-a labor-intensive process that sacrifices production time. A new surface coating developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films, in Brunswick, Germany, promises a more efficient way to smell trouble.
The coating, embedded with fragrance-filled microcapsules, is applied to tools and machinery. As a protective top layer wears thin, the capsules are broken and the fragrance is released. For household tools, any concentrated fragrances, such as perfumes, can be used and detected by the human nose. For industrial machinery, other indicators, such as gases, can be encapsulated. When released, they can be detected by a sensor that triggers an alarm. The researchers aim to have the coatings commercially available in Europe within about a year.
Keep Reading
Most Popular
A Roomba recorded a woman on the toilet. How did screenshots end up on Facebook?
Robot vacuum companies say your images are safe, but a sprawling global supply chain for data from our devices creates risk.
A startup says it’s begun releasing particles into the atmosphere, in an effort to tweak the climate
Make Sunsets is already attempting to earn revenue for geoengineering, a move likely to provoke widespread criticism.
10 Breakthrough Technologies 2023
These exclusive satellite images show that Saudi Arabia’s sci-fi megacity is well underway
Weirdly, any recent work on The Line doesn’t show up on Google Maps. But we got the images anyway.
Stay connected
Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.