The italian pilot study of the D-noses project: An integrated approach involving citizen science and olfactometry to identify odour sources in the area of castellanza (VA)

This work was developed within the Horizon 2020 D-NOSES project, with the purpose of validating a new methodology for odour pollution management based on citizen science. The work was carried out in the area of Castellanza, in the Region of Lombardy (Italy), and involved 4 plants that have been identified as potential causes for odour emissions. In this complex situation, it was proposed to combine the D-NOSES methodology with the "traditional"way involving olfactometric measurements and dispersion modelling, in order to identify the causes of the odour problem. The results of the olfactometric surveys allowed to identify the major odour emissions of the plants under investigation. Moreover, the preliminary analysis of the 358 odour observations collected in the period between May 14th and September 30th 2020 by a group of trained citizens, resulted in the disprove of the common belief that a particular product of the chemical plant caused the release of odorous chemical substances generating malodours at the municipal WWTP

Implementation of an Instrumental Odour Monitoring System (IOMS) with variable thresholds to predict citizens' odour perceptions

The use of Instrumental Odour Monitoring Systems (IOMS) to monitor odours at plant fencelines is becoming more and more interesting. Indeed, in Italy, IOMS are currently frequently prescribed at waste treatment facilities with the purpose of continuously monitoring odour emission and produce alarms when a given threshold is exceeded. In this context, a possible improvement concerns the implementation of variable alarm thresholds, which change as a function of the local meteorological conditions, and result in a better correlation with odour perceptions at receptors. This paper presents the implementation of such a monitoring system applied to a landfill, proving its capability to increase the correspondence between threshold exceedances and odour events at receptors, thus paving the way for the development of a system capable in assisting plant managers to promptly identify critical situations and plan immediate interventions to reduce odour impacts

Towards real-time monitoring of odorous emissions from a waste treatment plant: a case study

The most recent BAT for waste treatment plants includes odours among the environmental parameters to be monitored and controlled. In Italy, the prescription of permanent installations of electronic noses (or Industrial Odour Monitoring Systems - IOMS) in the environmental permit of waste treatment plants (WTPs) is becoming more and more frequent. IOMS are intended to provide a real-time estimation of the odour concentration at the fenceline of the plant. Although this type of IOMS application is becoming very common, it is far from being state-of-the-art. In this context, this paper describes a research project aimed at the implementation at the fenceline of a WTP of an IOMS network, comprising two IOMS and a meteorological station. The paper focuses on presenting the experimental procedure involved for training IOMS and verifying their performance in the field. 5 olfactometric campaigns were carried out at the plant to build IOMS calibration models aimed at WTP odours detection, classification, and quantification. Results of field performance testing proved, with classification accuracies above 95% achieved by both IOMS, a very good capability of properly trained IOMS to recognize WTP odours. Moreover, they pointed out a great agreement between the estimations of the odour concentration provided by the IOMS and the odour concentration assessed by dynamic olfactometry, thereby boosting the research in this field. Finally, the paper reports the results of 1-year monitoring at the WTP with the purpose of evaluating the possibility to define an alarm threshold for the odour concentration

Micrometeorological methods for the indirect quantification of odour emissions

Odours are typically released into the atmosphere as diffuse emissions from area and volume sources, whose detailed quantification in terms of odour emission rate is often hardly achievable by direct source sampling. Indirect methods, involving the use of micrometeorological methods in order to correlate downwind concentrations to the emission rates, are already mentioned in literature, but rarely found in real applications for the quantification of odour emissions. The instrumentation needed for the development of micrometeorological methods has nowadays become accessible in terms of prices and reliability, thus making the implementation of such methods to industrial applications more and more interesting. For this reason, this work aims to provide an overview of micrometeorological methods and investigate their effective applicability to odours, thereby providing a short description of the physics related to such methods and analysing the relevant scientific literature. The theoretical basis of these methods is presented, and their advantages and disadvantages are discussed. Moreover, their applicability to the estimation of odour emissions is discussed by providing some suggestions about the suitable ways to evaluate the most critical parameters needed for the calculation of the odour emission rate

Micrometeorological Methods for the Indirect Estimation of Odorous Emissions

Odors are typically released into the atmosphere as diffuse emissions from area and volume sources, whose detailed quantification in terms of odor emission rate is often hardly achievable by direct source sampling. Indirect methods, involving the use of micrometeorological methods in order to correlate downwind concentrations to the emission rates, are already mentioned in literature, but rarely found in real applications for the quantification of odor emissions. The instrumentation needed for the development of micrometeorological methods has nowadays become accessible in terms of prices and reliability, thus making the implementation of such methods to industrial applications more and more interesting. For this reason, this work aims to provide an overview of micrometeorological methods and investigate their effective applicability to odors, thereby providing a short description of the physics related to such methods and analyzing the relevant scientific literature. The theoretical basis of these methods is presented, and their advantages and disadvantages are discussed. Moreover, their applicability to the estimation of odor emissions is discussed by providing some suggestions about the suitable ways to evaluate the most critical parameters needed for the calculation of the odor emission rate