Instrumental characterization of odour: a combination of olfactory and analytical methods

摘要

Odour emissions are a major environmental issue in wastewater treatment plants and arenconsidered to be the main cause of disturbance noticed by the exposed population. Odournmeasurement is carried out using analytical or sensorial methods. Sensorial analysis, beingnassigned to the “human sensor”, is the cause of a considerable uncertainty. In this study ancorrelation between analytical and sensorial methods was investigated. A novel tool was used tonboth define odour indexes and characterise the odour sources and the volatile substances thatncause annoyance in a wastewater treatment plant, with the aim to remove the subjectivencomponent in the measure of the odours and define the induced impact. The sources and thenmain chemical substances responsible for the olfactory annoyances were identified. Around 36ndifferent substances were detected, with more than half being smell relevant components as wellnas responsible. Dimethyl disulphide was identified as key compound. Results highlight thenapplicability of highly correlation between analytical and sensorial methods in odour emissionnmonitoring.