E-Nose
Description
E-Nose is a device that senses the level of airborne particles contained in air or water. It has several features including real time monitoring, alarm, periodic reporting, odour prediction modelling and correlation of odour on specific operations.
Benefits
The potential benefits of the E-Nose system include:
- Real time, quantitative monitoring of odour levels.
- Reduced fines and costs to comply with odour regulations.
- Responsed to certain chemicals that humans cannot smell or dare not smell for reasons of safety. Additionally the electronic nose does not, like the human nose, become fatigued or no longer respond to an odour due to adaption.
Availability
The E-Nose technology was developed by MLA and E-Nose Pty Ltd. It has been trialled at several processors, and MLA is currently reviewing the technology and its path to full commercialisation.
More Information
Odour release remains one of the greatest sources of community complaints and concerns regarding meat processing and rendering plants. Unfortunately, the objective measurement of the offensiveness or strength of odours in a manner that corresponds to that detected by the human nose remains extremely difficult and expensive.
An earlier preliminary study by MLA showed that commercial electronic noses could distinguish between types of odour, although these noses are expensive (AUD100,000) and may not always provide the solutions that are claimed for such devices. It was believed that there was scope for producing low-cost, portable sensors that are programmed for a given situation, such as a meat processing works.
What is an Electronic Nose?
The term ‘Electronic Nose' is a generic name for an analytical instrument that profiles the headspace volatiles over or around a sample. The technology is based on an array of partially-specific chemical sensors whose outputs are integrated by advanced signal processing to rapidly identify complex odour mixtures. These devices offer the food, packaging and other industries a method of rapid chemical analysis for the improvement of production efficiency and quality control, by classifying complex volatile mixtures.
Current analytical methods, such as gas chromatography and mass spectrometry are unsuitable or unable to satisfy the requirement for rapid, simple operation which is demanded in the factory situation.
In the past, commercially electronic noses were not adapted to on-line monitoring or process control. Their sensitivity and speed of operation left much to be desired. Additionally, demonstrated software and data analysis techniques of the commercial systems were not generally suitable for feedback or alarm situations.
The electronic nose to some extent mimics the human sense of smell, but humans have a sensitivity and response repertoire greatly exceeding electronic noses. However, the noses can respond to certain chemicals that humans cannot smell or dare not smell for reasons of safety. Additionally the electronic nose does not, like the human nose, become fatigued or no longer respond to an odour due to adaption.
In the past, electronic noses were a comparative technique only and would not produce a classification or "fingerprint" of the volatiles in a headspace. There was no identification of the components in the mixture. To achieve recognition of samples the noses require training. Electronic nose outputs are not generally considered quantitative.
The main features of the electronic nose technique are:
- The response can be rapid and highly reproducible.
- The chemical fingerprint is unique and can be matched to a library for rapid identification.
- Once a protocol has been established the instrument does not require a highly skilled operative and frequently an icon driven screen is simply used to control operations.