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.

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

Or, if you are interested in something more poetic, like the smell of a wet city street after rain, I have no idea what you would be looking for or at what concentration levels. But it sounds rather fun to try.

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.

22 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

The first big problem is that there are something like a billion known chemicals, and we can't look for all of them in one sample.

If we did then the analysis report would be rather unmanageable; a billion lines most of which said "not detected". I think that's something like a thousand big thick books

(and it wouldn't be cheap)

The other big problem is that, for some materials, you can smell them at concentrations  which are below the limit of detection by GC/MS (or most other techniques).

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.

22 hours ago, exchemist said:

I’m not quite sure what you mean by capturing. Do you mean a complete chemical analysis of a sample of air? The issue with that will be down to what threshold of detection, because there will be traces of all sorts of things at very low concentrations. The other issue is you need to have some idea of what molecules you are looking for in order to pick the best analytical method to use. If this is a smell project I imagine you won’t be interested in the major gases, but more in organic compounds , and possibly at the ppm level. Is that right, or are you thinking of inorganic components that the human nose detects, e.g SO2, H2S, etc?

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.

5 hours ago, studiot said:

 

How can you reassure us we are not helping to bust a patent or copyright ?

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.