Sniffing out danger
Fledgling company commercializes e-nose technology
CogniScent Inc. of North Grafton has a nose for trouble – an electronic nose, that is. And it could soon be helping everyone from homeowners to hazmat teams to Homeland Security sniff out danger.
CogniScent, formed in 2002, is about to launch the Scentaur, its first commercial product using its patented e-nose. It’s a hand-held device that can detect mold in buildings. Beverly-based Hamilton Thorne Biosciences, which began collaboration with CogniScent last year, is expected to begin selling the Scentaur by yearend, says CogniScent President and CEO Hugh Greville. Priced at $3,500 to $4,000, it’s geared toward owners, inspectors and managers of residential and commercial buildings.By detecting the odors given off by fungal organisms, it can screen buildings for mold in a fraction of the time and cost of current screening methods such as gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, CogniScent says. Such screening can help owners avoid litigation, structural damage, clean-up costs and health ramifications from the "plethora of fungi" that threaten indoor environments.
Greville says the projected market for Scentaur is $50-$60 million in the first few years. But that’s only one segment of a much broader potential market for the e-nose. The technology is at the core of several prototype devices now being tested to detect explosives, chemical warfare agents and toxic industrial chemicals.
Within the next nine to 12 months, CogniScent expects to launch another device based on its ScenTrak technology that will sniff out and identify hazardous chemicals in the air. It will be marketed to the more than one million first responders around the country, including teams that handle hazardous materials spills. Potential sales for that segment could amount to $100 million, Greville says.
CogniScent’s technology uses a vapor pump to draw air past an array of optically activated sensors that give patterned responses to chemical compounds and odors. The patterns are then matched with those in an odor database to identify them. The analysis is accomplished in a matter of seconds.
Beyond the hazmat market, Greville says the company also sees potential for its products in public safety and security in settings such as airports or other places where crowds congregate.
The technology evolved from the neuroscience research of two Tufts Medical School scientists, John Kauer and Joel White, whose initial federally funded research centered on developing a landmine detecting device back in the early to mid-1990s.
After years of prototype testing and development at the company’s R & D facilities at the Tufts School of Veterinary Medicine, CogniScent’s success in reducing the size and weight of its devices – to three pounds and three by four inches – opened the door to upcoming product launches, Greville says.
The company has thus far raised $4 million in funding, with $2-2.5 million coming from federal sources, including the Department of Homeland Security.
Paul Adrian, a senior industry analyst in the Technical Insights Division at Frost & Sullivan, says CogniScent has a unique e-nose technology that potentially can screen for more materials than competitors and at a lower price. What’s more, he says, CogniScent is "doing a very good job at rapidly commercializing their technology for key applications."
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