An Advanced Hand Held Electronic Nose for Ambient Air Applications

Ambient air carries hundreds of volatile compounds that can provide information about the toxicity and quality of our immediate environment. This paper presents a prototype of an advanced electronic nose (e-nose) based on resistive microsensors for the measurements of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and inorganic pollutants in ambient air. It integrates an array of chemical sensors into the embedded system to detect volatile compounds in the ambient air. The e-nose is the sixth prototype of the WiNOSE series developed by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the University of Extremadura (UEx). The main features of the e-nose are its compact size and low weight and it includes eight chemical sensors, completed with humidity and temperature sensors. It was tested with several samples and the results show that the system can detect and discriminate them with a high degree of accuracy. The system development, testing methodologies, and results analysis are presented and discussed.