James Watt Nanofabrication Centre

JWNC Chris Wilkinson Award Rebecca Setford

Trichloroanisole (TCA) – a musty tasting contaminant – is a major issue in the whisky industry. Humans can taste this molecule at 4ppt, a concentration that is extremely difficult to detect analytically, requiring centralised lab facilities and time-consuming tests on highly specialised, expensive equipment. The invention of a rapid, point-of-need testing system could save the Scottish whisky industry millions per year in testing alone and allow them to identify contamination instantly at-site.

Rebecca Setford, with support from William Peveler and Alasdair Clark, has created a nanoplasmonic metasurface for selective detection of TCA; combining optically responsive (colour-changing) gold nanostructures and engineered TCA-capturing polymers (which act as a sponge for TCA). By coating the metasurface sensors with thin-films of these polymers she is able to produce an easily-observable colour-change on the sensor chip when it encounters TCA – even at the threshold of human perception (4ppt).

Rebecca has tested the technology in partnership with the Scotch Whisky Research Institute (SWRI), who provided contaminated whisky ranging from 110ppt to 470ppt TCA. Not only can they detect TCA, the degree of colour-change observed is concertation dependent. This exciting development for whisky extends to QA/QC testing across all liquid production (each industry has its “undetectable” contaminant it spends millions testing for off-site). With the platform established, Rebecca can tweak the polymer to any of these molecules, providing point-of-need tools that solve sensing problems for producers of liquids at an industrial scale (e.g. beverages, pharmaceuticals, drinking water treatment, oils, etc.).

This work has led directly to the award of PQA funding and a KTP partnership with SWRI.

Tools provided by the JWNC
• O2 plasma cleaner
• Metal evaporation tools
• Electron beam lithography
• SEM and Dektak

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First published: 5 June 2026