Industrial odour nuisance and problems

Wat about odour nuisance?

In case of odour nuisance (odour problems), social concerns are often very important. When no odour control measures are taken, the dislike of an industrial plants neighbourhood can lead to negative publicity in the media. In some cases, governmental involvement might lead to environmental investigations.

Smell Thresholds

Odour control is a complex matter because of the different smell thresholds of the components. Often, a mixture of components causes the odour nuisance, where those with the lowest concentrations can cause the strongest source of smell.

Hydrogen Sulphide (H2S) is a good example. It is a toxic and flammable gas that has a smell of rotten eggs, and already causes noticeable odour nuisance in a concentration of 0.0005 PPM. Industrial odour is a problem for many industries worldwide.

What makes odour so complicated?

Odour is complicated because it  is a cocktail of possibly hundreds different organic components. The weight concentration is mostly very low, but the odour-concentration (=number of required dilution’s in order to just being able to detect it) can be very high.

The odour-components with the lowest concentrations (sub-ppb-range) cannot be detected by GC or GCMS but the human nose could very well notice them. So by this way it is impossible to make calculations or predictions on odour-emission. Each odour-component can mask or amplify another component within the cocktail.

Odour is dynamic, since the components and their concentrations will vary in time due to differences in process- conditions, raw materials, weather-conditions, etc. Particles can generate odour once they are released in atmosphere, especially particles below 1 micron have a large total surface area.

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