UMP invents odour detecting gadget to spot pollution

KUANTAN: A team of researchers at Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP) here have developed an electronic scent detection device called Electronic Nose or E-nose which can help identify the source of contamination.

Its dean of commercialisation Dr Nur Aainaa Syafini Mohd Radzi said since its production in May 2007, the gadget has helped the agricultural and chemical industry, as well as food quality and forensic sectors.

“Odour is one of the effects of volatile organic compound reaction and E-nose is a device that can detect the diffused odour emitted as a result of industrial operations that produce odours through odour mapping.

“E-nose applies scientific methods based on consistent and unbiased data from trained odour specialists who have different nose sensitivities or may have limited health problems,” he told Bernama at the Bio Aromatic Research Centre of Excellence at UMP Gambang here today.

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Nur Aainaa said E-nose would depend on the profile of odour samples stored in the data library to be produced by UMP while the five mobile-E-nose models would facilitate on-site tasks with immediate results.

UMP’s Bio Aromatic Research Centre of Excellence director, associate professor Dr Saiful Nizam Tajuddin said E-nose had successfully identified the unpleasant odour caused by soy processing in Thailand this year.

He said UMP as a consultant had been asked by Sime Darby Plantation Research Sdn Bhd to detect the odour as they could not determine the cause and they unable to take action to resolve it.

“The soy processing plant operates 24 hours and there are four processes to go through where E-nose ultimately detects the source of the odour at the end of the processing.

“The decision allows the parties to go through the process of recovery instead of spending a lot of money on all the machines ,and they just have to spend on the end machines which proves to be cost-effective,” he said.

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Saiful Nizam said E-nose could also be used to assess the freshness of cooking oil to ‘replace’ the human function done manually using the sense of smell and taste.

E-nose’s services according to Saiful Nizam have also been used by Dubai’s leading perfume maker Ajmal Perfumes to ensure the authenticity of the oud essential oil as well as to help detect its presence in agarwood trees to prevent unnecessary felling. – Bernama

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