RHINOS: A lightweight portable electronic nose for real-time odor quantification in wastewater treatment plants

Javier Burgués; María Deseada Esclapez; Silvia Doñate; Santiago Marco

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2021.103371

RHINOS: A lightweight portable electronic nose for real-time odor quantification in wastewater treatment plants

iScience. 2021 Nov 16;24(12):103371. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2021.103371. eCollection 2021 Dec 17.

Authors

Javier Burgués^{1

2}, María Deseada Esclapez³, Silvia Doñate³, Santiago Marco^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Baldiri Reixac 10-12, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
² Department of Electronics and Biomedical Engineering, Universitat de Barcelona, Marti i Franqués 1, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
³ Depuración de Aguas del Mediterráneo (DAM), Avenida Benjamín Franklin 21, Parque Tecnológico, 46980 Paterna, Spain.

Abstract

Quantification of odor emissions in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) is key to minimize odor impact to surrounding communities. Odor measurements in WWTPs are usually performed via either expensive and discontinuous olfactometry hydrogen sulfide detectors or via fixed electronic noses. We propose a portable lightweight electronic nose specially designed for real-time odor monitoring in WWTPs using small drones. The so-called RHINOS e-nose allows odor measurements with high spatial resolution, and its accuracy is only slightly worse than that of dynamic olfactometry. The device has been calibrated using odor samples collected in a WWTP in Spain over a period of six months and validated in the same WWTP three weeks after calibration. The promising results obtained support the suitability of the proposed instrument to identify the odor sources having the highest emissions, which may give a useful indication to the plant managers as regards odor control and abatement.

Keywords: Chemistry; Engineering; Environmental chemical engineering; Sensor; Sensor system.