CSIR-NEERI develops E-Nose for environmental monitoring in pulp and paper mill industry

New Delhi, Jul 9 (KNN) Nagpur based National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) under CSIR and the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) udder DeIT have jointly developed an ‘Electronic Nose’ for environmental monitoring in pulp and paper mill industry. The prime objective behind developing it is to protect the health of thousands of workers working in this industry.

The portable device measures odour concentration and odour intensity and will help sniff out a variety of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and odorants.

The pulp and paper industry emits a variety of gases, namely, hydrogen sulphide, methyl mercaptan, dimethyl sulphide, and dimethyl disulphide all of which beyond a certain concentrations may adversely affect the environment and human health.

E-Nose helps in continuous monitoring of these gases, overcoming all limitations of the available analytical instruments that are not only expensive and time-consuming. It can easily be operated at a pulp and paper mill industry. 

It is currently functioning successfully at the Mysore Paper Mills Limited, Bhadravathi, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu Paper Mill.  Besides, it also establishes a correlation between sensory and analytical measurements for the sulphurous odorants generated from pulp and paper industries, tanneries and distilleries. (KNN Bureau)