ELECTRONIC NOSE

ABSTRACT

The harnessing of electronics to measure odor is greatly to be desired.

Human panels backed up by gas chromatography and mass
spectrometry are helpful in quantifying smells, but they time are
consuming, expensive and seldom performed in real time in the field. So it is
important that these traditional methods give way to a speedier procedure
using and electronic nose composed of gas sensors. Electronic nose
or E-noses are the systems that detect and identify odours and vapours,
typically linking chemical sensing devices with signal processing,
pattern recognition and artificial intelligence techniques which enable uses
to readily extract relevant and reliable information.

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INTRODUCTION
The electronics field is developing at a fast THE BIOLOGICAL NOSE
rate. Each day the industry is To attempt to mimic the
coming with new technology and human apparatus, researchers have
products. The electronic components play a identified distinct steps that characterize
major role in all fields of life. The the way humans smell. It all begins
scientists had started to mimic the with sniffing, which moves air
biological world. The development samples that contain molecules of
of artificial neural network in which odors past curved bony structures
the nervous system is electronically called turbinate. The turbinate create
implemented is one among them. The turbulent airflow patterns that carry the
scientists realized the importance mixture of volatile compounds to
of the detection and identification that thin mucus coating of the nose’s
of odor in many fields. In human olfactory epithelium, where ends if the
body it is achieved with the help of nerve cells that sense odorants. The
one of the sense organ, the nose. volatile organic compounds (VOCs)
So scientists realized the need of basic to odors reach the olfactory
imitating the human nose. The epithelium in gaseous form or else
concept of the electronic nose as a coating on the particles that fill
appeared for the first time in a nature the air we breathe. Particles reach the
paper by Persuade and Dodd (1982). olfactory epithelium not only from the
The authors suggested that gas sensor nostrils but also from the mouth.
array responses could be analyzed As VOCs and particles carrying
with artificial neural networks VOCs pass over the mucus membrane
thereby increasing sensitivity and lining the nose, they are trapped by the
precision in analysis significantly. mucus and diffuse through to the next layer,
The electronic nose technology namely, the epithelium, where the
goes several steps ahead of the sensory cells lie in wait. The cells
conventional gas sensors. The are covered in multiple cilia- hair
electronics nose system detects and like structures with receptors located on
sensing devices with pattern the cells outer membranes.
recognition sub system. The electronic
nose won quickly considerable interest The sensory cells in the
in food analysis for rapid and reliable epithelium respond by transmitting
quality classification in manufacturing signals along neural “wires” called
testing. Later, the electronic noses have axons. Such an axon first traverses
also been applied to classification of micro a small hole in a bony structure in
organisms and bio-reactor monitoring. Even the base of the skull, known as the
though the electronic nose resembles cribriform plate. Then the rest of the
its biological counter part nose too neuron wends its way to the brain’s
closely the label “electronic nose” or “E- olfactory bulb, where it terminates in a
nose” has been widely accepted around the cluster of neural networks called
world. glomeruli. The 2000 or so glomeruli
of the olfactory bulb represent the

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first tier of central odor information the odorant, or the characteristic
processing. properties of the odor as might be perceived
by a human.
Olfactory information ultimately
arrives higher up in the brain, first at the Fundamental to the artificial
hypothalamus, which also processes neural nose is the idea that each sensor
signals related to food intake, and in the array has different sensitivity.
then at still higher processing What is important is that the pattern
centres. The use of noninvasive of response across the sensors is
techniques to study the brain distinct for different odorants. This
suggests that different chemical distinguishability allows the system
stimuli activate different brain to identify an unknown odor from the
regions to different degrees. pattern of sensor responses. Each sensor
in the array has a unique response
The concentration of an odor may be profile to the spectrum of odorants
expressed as a multiple of either its under test. The pattern of response across
detection on its recognition threshold. The all sensors in the array is used to identify
recognition threshold is defined by and/or characterize the odor.
the American Society for Testing and
Materials (ASTM) as the lowest
concentration at which an odor is first
detected recognition is no necessary
– by 50% of human sniffing it.
The detection threshold is considered the
absolute threshold of sensation for an
odor. The odor concentration at this
threshold is defined to be 1.0 odor unit / m3.
The threshold is usually kept 5-10 units.

ELECTRONIC NOSE PRINCIPLES

Enter the gas sensors of the SENSING AN ODORANT
electronic nose. This speedy, reliable
new technology undertakes what till now In a typical electronic nose, an air
has been impossible – continuous real sample is pulled by a vacuum pump
monitoring of odor at specific sites in the through a tube The tube may be
field over hours, days, weeks or even made of plastic or a stainless steel. the
months. sample– handling unit exposes the
sensors to the odorant, producing a
The electronic nose is a system transient response as the VOCs interact with
consisting of three functional the surface and bulk of the sensor’s
components that operate serially on an active material. A steady state
odorant sample- a sample handler, an array condition is reached in a few seconds to
of gas sensors, and a signal processing a few minutes, depending on the sensor
system. The output of the electronic nose type. During this interval, the
can be the identity of the odorant, sensor’s response is recorded and
an estimate of the concentration of delivered to the signal processing unit.then
washing is carried out. Finally, the

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reference gas is applied to the array,
to prepare it for a new measurement
cycle. The period during which the
washing and reference gases are applied is
termed the recovery time.

ELECTRONIC NOSE SENSORS

Electronic nose sensors fall in four
categories:-

• Conductivity Sensors b. Polymer Sensor

• Piezo Electric Sensors
• MOSFET Sensors and, Conducting polymer sensors,
• Optical Sensors. a second type of conductivity sensor,
are also commonly used in electronic nose
CONDUCTIVITY SENSORS systems. Here, the active material in the
above figure is a conducting
There are two types of conductivity polymer from such families as the
sensors. polypyroles, thiophenes, indoles or furans.
Changes in the conductivity of these
a. Metal Oxide Sensor materials occur as they are exposed to
various types of chemicals, which
Metal Oxide Semi conductor sensors bond with the polymer backbone.
have been used more extensively in The bonding may be ionic or in some
electronic nose instruments and are cases, covalent. The interaction
widely available commercially. Typical affects the transfer of electrons
metal Oxide sensors include oxides of tin, along the polymer chain, that is to
zinc, titanium, tungsten and Iridium doped say its conductivity is strongly
with a noble metal catalyst such as influenced by the counter – ions and
platinum or palladium. The doped functional groups attached to the polymer
semi conducting material with backbone.
which the VOCs interact is deposited
between two metal contacts over a PIEZO ELECTRICAL SENSORS
resistive heating element, which
operates at 200c to 400 c. At these The Piezoelectric family of
elevated temperature, heat dispersion sensors also has two members: quarts
becomes a factor in the mechanical crystal microbalance (QCM) and surface
design of the sensing chamber. As a acoustic-wave (SAW) devices.
VOC passes over the doped oxide They can measure temperature
material, the resistance between the mass changes, pressure, force
two metal contacts changes in proportion and acceleration but in the electronic once,
to the concentration of the VOC. they are configured as mass-change-
sensing device.

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a) QCM SENSOR

The QCM types consist of a

resonating disk a few millimeters in
diameter, with metal elect odes on each side
connected to dead wise. The
device resonate at a characteristic
frequency (10MHz to 30MHz) when
excited with an oscillating signal.

MOSFET SENSORS
MOSFET odor sensing device
are based on the principle that VOCs
in contact with a catalytic metal can
produce a reaction in the metal
and the reaction’s products can diffuse
through the gate of the MOSFET
to change the electrical properties of
the device. A typical MOSFET
structure has p-type substrate with two n
doped regions with metal contacts
labeled source and drain as shown in
fig.
b) SAW SENSOR

The Saw Sensor differs from

QCMs in several important ways.
First, A Rayliegh (Surface) wave
travels over the surface of the device; not
throughout its volume. SAW sensors
operate at much higher frequencies, and so
can generate a larger change in frequency. A
typical SAW device operates in the
hundreds of megahertz, while
10MHZ is more typical for a QCM,
but SAW device can measure changes OPTICAL SENSORS
in mass to the same order of magnitude as Optical fiber sensors, yet another
QCMs. Even though the frequency type, utilize glass fibers with a thin
range is larger, increased surface-to- chemically active material coating on
volume ratios mean the Signal-to- their sides or ends as shown in Fig.
noise ratio is usually poorer. Hence, A light source at a single frequency
SAW device be less sensitive the (or at a narrow band of frequencies)
QCMs in some instances. is used to interrogate the active
material, which in turn responds
with a change in color to the

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presence of the VOCs to be detected ranges of all the sensors in an
and measured. array (the normalization constant
may some times be used to
estimate the odorant concentration),
and compression sensor transients.

Neighboring neurons are

trained to respond to similar types
of stimuli (odorants), a self
organizing behavior motivated by
neuro biological considerations.
Neither of these techniques makes use of
class labels, so they are not optimal
for pattern classification. Once the
odor examples have been projected on an
appropriate low dimensional space the
SIGNAL PROCESSING AND classification stage can be trained to
PATTERN RECOGNITION identify the patterns that are
The task of an electronic representative of each odor, when
nose is to identify an odorant presented with an unidentified odor,
sample and perhaps to estimate its the classification stage will be able to
concentration. The means are signal assign to it a class label (identify the
processing and pattern recognition. For odorant) by comparing its pattern with those
an electronic nose system this two complied during training. The
steps may be subdivided into classical methods of performing the
four sequential stages. They are classification task are K nearest
pre- processing, feature extraction, neighbor (KNN) Bayesian
classification and decision- making. But classifiers, and Artificial Neural
first a data base of the expected odorant Network(ANN).
must be compiled, and sample must be ANNs have been applied to and
presented to the nose’s sensor array. increasing number of real world problems
of considerable complexity. Their most
important advantage is in solving
problems that are too complex for
conventional technologies; that is
problems that do not have an algorithmic
solution or for which an algorithmic
solution is too complex to be found. In
general, because of their abstraction
from the biological brain, ANNs are
Preprocessing compensates for well suited to problems that people are good
sensor drift compress the transient at solving but computers are not.
response of the sensor array, and These problems include pattern
reduces sample to sample recognition and forecasting. However,
variations. Typical techniques are unlike the human capability in
manipulation of sensor base lines, pattern recognition, The ANNs
normalization of sensor response

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capability is not affected by factors • Identification of household odours.
such as fatigue, working conditions, • Monitoring air quality.
emotional state and compensation. • Monitoring factor emission.

APPLICATIONS PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY

The electronic nose finds lot of APPICATIONS
application in many fields. he major In the pharmaceutical industry
applications are the electronic nose could be used
to screen the incoming raw
FOOD INDUSTRY APPLICATION materials, monitor production process,
In food industry they can be used for maintain security in storage and
• Inspection of food by odour distribution areas, quality assurance,
• Grading quality of food by odour testing the employees in critical
• Fish inspection occupations for drug use or abuse,
• Fermentation control use to detect unpleasant smell in the
• Checking mayonnaise for rancidity industrial area.
• Automated flavor control
SAFTY AND SECURITY APPLICATION
• Monitoring chees ripening
• Beverage container inspection
The electronic nose can help in the
• Grading whiskey
safety and security applications. They
• Microwave over cooking
include
controlElectronic Nose
• Hazardous alarms for toxic and
MEDICAL APPLICATIONS
biological agents
applicability as a diagnostic tool.
• Screening airline passengers for
An electronic nose can be used to analyze
explosive
the odours from the body and
• Examining vehicles for drugs.
identify the possible problems.
• Monitoring indoor air quality.
Odour in the breath can be
• Fire alarms in nuclear plants.
indicative of gastrointestinal
• Biological and chemical detection in
problems, sinus problem, infection,
battlefield. Electronic Nose Electronic Nose
diabetes, liver problems etc, infected
wounds and tissues will emit distinctive
smell, which can be detected by the CONCLUSION
electronic nose, liver and bladder In the seminar, it is mentioned
problems. more accurately termed electronic
arrays for chemical sensing and
identification. In this quick tour of the route
from molecule to smell, it is helpful
ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING to correlate many of the discrete
The environmental applications of the physiological steps with engineering
electronic nose will include ones ranging from sampling, signal
processing and application all the way to
• Identification of toxic wastes. neural computation.
• Analysis of fuel mixtures.
• Detection of oil leaks.

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