Device used to sniff out out industrial emissions

Scientists are developing ‘electronic nose’ sensor technology for measuring and predicting the dispersal of odours from industrial plants into the community.

Odotech, a spin-out from Polytechnique Montréal, is working with clients in the UK, including Yorkshire Water, other waste water treatment plants, and some breweries. The data gathered will help plant managers optimise deployment of scrubbing methods, and time certain operational processes according to the weather.

‘Certainly in North America, 70% of air quality complaints are odour-related, so it’s a real quality of life issue for nearby residents and the wider community,’ said Thierry Pagé, Odotech’s President. ‘Those people, you want them happy, I haven’t seen a lot of plant managers that don’t want to be a good neighbour, and so we enable that, they don’t have to wait for the phonecall that there’s a problem, they are the first ones to know and they can act accordingly.’