Feasibility of using an electronic nose for quality assessment of air in poultry slaughterhouse rendering plants

Growth of industrial activities and increasing emissions are giving greater attention to environmental problems in the world. Unpleasant (malodorous) smells can be classified as pollutants that have a negative impact on the quality of life. About one-third to half of animal products unusable for humans are used as raw materials in the processing and recycling industry. One of the most important features of slaughterhouse rendering plants is the release of volatile compounds and unpleasant odours, which disturb workers and people living adjacent of this industry. The purpose of this study was to evaluate an electronic nose system as a tool for displaying vapours from a slaughterhouse rendering plant, selecting an array of appropriate sensors and determining the fingerprint for this pollutant unit. Material and methods: Batch cooking was carried out at a temperature of 140 ° C under 3 bar pressure for four hours and uniformly stirred at a speed of 20 rpm (ISIRI 2389, 1995). A total of 30 liquid samples, each one with volume of 10 ml, were obtained from condensed vapours of batch cooker. Samples were transferred to the laboratory located at the Agricultural Machinery Department of the University of Tehran, and an electronic nose system was used for analysis and investigation. The electronic nose system was based on metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) sensors and included an array of six gas sensors. The principal component analysis (PCA) method was used to evaluate the sensors and select appropriate array of sensors. Observation of the sensor’s response up until steady state with the aim of reducing consumption of time and oxygen, showed that 30 seconds to reach sensors to their baseline (baseline time), 100 seconds to contact the vapours with sensors (injection and response time) and 40 seconds to clear the sensors (purging time) were suitable. Correlation analysis of the sensors showed that some of the sensors had a correlation higher than 0. 85. The analysis of variance distribution of the two primary principal components showed that these two components comprised more than 99% of the total variance, and the primary component (PC-1) comprised over 98% of the total variance. The highest effect on the first component was related to the MQ135 sensor, after that the MQ136, MQ9, MQ131, MQ5 and, finally, MQ3 sensors were effective. The analysis of the principal components showed that MQ135 and MQ136 sensors, having a high sensitivity to ammonia, hydrogen sulphide and benzene, were the most suitable sensors for detecting the unpleasant smell released from the poultry slaughterhouse waste batch cooking (rendering plant). Selection of the MQ135 and MQ136 sensors as an array can be used to distinguish between pollutants from poultry rendering plants and pollutants released from other industries, and these sensors can be used to determine the fingerprint of the odour emitted from poultry rendering plants. According to the results of this research, the electronic nose system with arrays of MQ135 and MQ136 can be used to monitor and control the quality of pollutants from poultry rendering plants. Also, with referring to this fact that unpleasant odours as part of air quality control have no standard definition in Iran, an electronic nose system could be used to control the air quality in terms of the presence of unpleasant odours in the environment.