Abstract
To determine odour concentrations in field conditions, portable dynamic olfactometers are used especially in North America, but those solutions are gaining popularity in Europe. This article compares results of using two field olfactometers for assessing odors. Nasal Ranger (NR) and Scentroid SM-100 has been used for determining dilution to threshold ratio (D/T) and, whereby, the odour concentration of gas samples. NR range is 2 D/T to 500 D/T, and Scentroid SM-100’s is from 2 to 30,000. Under laboratory conditions, different concentrations of, inter alia, hydrogen sulphide as well as tetrahydrothiophene (used as an odorant in LPG) were tested. Concentrations of odorants were measured by gas chromatograph Photovac Voyager. Also, field researches were conducted – the paper compares those olfactometry field techniques used in wastewater treatment plant and municipal landfill. Statistical tests (i.e. test of the difference between the two means, statistical significance of differences, t-Student and Pearson’s test as well as rang order correlations) were performed to determine the correlation between values obtained by NR and SM-100 olfactometers. Those instruments correlated well in the laboratory tests with very strong correlation factor values, wherein in most cases SM-100 results of D/T were higher than NR. In the field tests, correlation depended on the source of an odor. In present article, the correlation of higher range of D/T determined by two field olfactometers was checked – those values for hydrogen sulphide were between 2 and 500.
