Two researchers at York University have enabled tabletop molecular communication via chemical signals from the evaporated alcohol found in vodka. The phrase ‘O Canada’ was successfully transmitted 4 meters across the room using vodka with the assistance of a fan.
Image via plosone.org
The researchers designed a receiver, a sensor that can detect chemical signals. Detection algorithms and demodulation is processed from the sensor. There is an open-source electronics prototyping platform Ardunio Uno board that is based on an ATmega328 microcontroller board. This board has a 10-bit analog to digital converter that reads the data from the sensors. The sensors used included the MQ303 sensor, MQ-3 sensor, and the MR513 sensor. The team used a 16×2 character LCD Shield Kit from Adafruit for text entry, with an add-on module for the Arduino microcontroller board. A special program was developed by the engineers to enable text entry with buttons manipulated by the user.
Image of the receiver components
The microcontroller was programmed with the demodulation, the detection block, and the source decoder block. The transmitter’s signal goes to the receiver and then the receiver demodulates and detects the symbols of that channel. The channel symbols are decoded via a channel decoder. Where the receiver attains the information that has been sent, the channel symbols are translated and that information goes through a decoder. As a result, if there are no errors, the text message is detected and is shown on a computer screen with a serial port.
The team used isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol) for their experiment that is safe at the lower concentrations that were used. Through the tests and research, the team has determined that chemical signaling can be used for communication between devices that are of the micro- or nano-scale. 
Image of the transmitter components
Nariman Farsad, the project’s leader, stated, “We believe we have sent the world’s first text message to be transmitted entirely with molecular communication, controlling concentration levels of the alcohol molecules to encode the alphabet, with single spray representing bits and no spray representing the bit zero.”
For the future, the engineers will use tighter algorithms, test will many types of chemicals, and use multiple-input and multiple-outut communication. Perhaps they will use an assortment of sensors for alternate test results.
Story via plosone.org, designboom.com
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