New sensors will let smartphones detect toxic gases

MIT researchers have developed new low-cost chemical sensors that can enable smartphones or other wireless devices to detect trace amounts of toxic gases.

Using the sensors, researchers hope to design lightweight, inexpensive radio-frequency identification (RFID) badges to be used for personal safety and security.

Such badges could be worn by soldiers on the battlefield to rapidly detect the presence of chemical weapons – such as nerve gas or choking agents – and by people who work around hazardous chemicals prone to leakage, researchers said.

“Soldiers have all this extra equipment that ends up weighing way too much and they cannot sustain it,” said Timothy Swager from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US.