melanin

So, to round this off constructively as my question has been somewhat adequately resolved: It appears the solution might be a very specialised GC-MS device, or similar, which is capable of identifying chemicals receptive to the human olfactory system. This would involve some insight into which chemicals humans are able to sense, characterise and distinguish between. If anyone is interested, I've discovered the olfactometer device, which is intended for precisely sensing and sampling the olfactory elements. Initially I had imagined a more magnified and accurate version of such a device, but perhaps this may present itself in the future as the field develops. Thanks again.

That precise situation was what intially sparked this thought. Thank you for the insight, it brings me some idea of what to expect and some direction. I might get in touch with the chemistry department now that I have a general idea about what to ask. Right. This was what I had feared/presumed, that it would be too extensive to identify a large percentage of the contents in the air (detectable by human sense of smell), at least using our current technological development.

This is wonderful information, guys, thank you and pardon my uninformed knowledge of chemistry, I didn't know what to search for! I understand this is an experimental question and I appreciate the time. Yes, a complete chemical analysis of a sample of air would be a very precise term for it. I imagine what I'm looking for would be gases exclusively, indeed. A sample of air in a moment in time. Ideally, I imagine the fullest spectrum possible with a focus on organic particles. I still need to do a lot of research into the human sense of smell, but as I understand it we are able to sense quite a lot of different chemicals, including non-organic particles, so these would be relevant as well. I've been looking into the concept of the gas chromatograph mass spectrometer (GC-MS) and this appears to come very close to what I had in mind. I've got the impression that these tend to be mostly focused on certain chemicals as opposed to a fuller spectrum, so perhaps what I'm looking for could be a more 'neutral', specialised GC-MS? At the moment I'm just wondering what is possible to achieve and how far away it lies. Frankly, I don't believe I can assure you. However, to provide a bit of insight, I'm a fine arts student and this subject is a part of an experimental project. Atm it is only research.

Hello there. I've been doing a fair amount of research and the only thing which comes close is a particle detector. These however tend to focus on the toxic particles only, leaving out a lot of content. What would be required to capture a 'full' data set of an atmosphere? I'm asking this question in relation to an olfactory project, the subject of scent, about whether it would be theoretically possible to capture a certain atmosphere for the purpose of cloning it. If this is the wrong place to ask, please direct me, thank you, I wasn't sure.