E-Nose Developed to Detect Hazardous Gases at Paper Mills

 

DNAIndia, Mumbai, India, reported this past week that an "electronic nose," a sensor-based portable device that can help sniff out a variety of hazardous gases at pulp and paper mills, has been developed and put into use. 

'Electronic nose' was developed by the Indian government for environmental monitoring as well as to protect the health of thousands of workers in the industry.

According to a Ministry of Science and Technology statement, this has been the first attempt in India to develop such a product using odor sensors that make use of intelligent software to identify odorous molecules. It is also possible to train the software by feeding information based on observation of experts.

Nagpur-based National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) of Department of Electronics and Information Technology have jointly developed the electronic nose for environmental monitoring, with the prime objective to protect the health of thousands of workers working in the pulp and paper mill industry.

The portable device measures odor concentration and odor intensity, the statement said, adding that pulp and paper industry emits a variety of gases, namely hydrogen sulfide, methyl mercaptan, dimethyl sulphide, and dimethyl disulphide, all of which beyond a certain concentration may adversely affect the environment and human health. This newly-developed electronic nose helps in continuous monitoring of these gases, overcoming all limitations of the available analytical instruments that are not only expensive but time-consuming.

The electronic nose can easily be operated in pulp and paper mills and is currently functioning successfully at the Mysore Paper Mills Ltd., Bhadravathi in Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu Paper Mill. It also establishes a correlation between sensory and analytical measurements for the sulfurous odorants generated from pulp and paper industries, tanneries, and distilleries.