This introductory paper was presented at the Nose2008 conference. Later Ton commented me that he got contacted by the Italian Association of Chemical Engineering (AIDIC) with a very short notice, so he had not much time left to prepare the paper.
Nonetheless, that morning, when the audience was hearing that speech about the history of a professional life and its relation with odours, it had the sense of being part of a very long history. A nice slice of this history belongs to Mr. Van Harreveld.
As we were hearing this speech, we realised that we were getting involved by the history of olfactometry itself, and as a part of it, we got inspired with this narration… At least I did!. So anyway, we enjoyed the rest of the day with other interesting papers on a very well organized conference. Meanwhile I made a note in my mind about reading the paper again.
I got to speak with Ton again later in Barcelona for the IWA meeting and I asked him for permission to publish this paper, not included, I guess due to its late birth, in the papers published by the organizers of the Nose2008. The permission was granted and here you have the paper.
Now you can read it and enjoy it.
In this paper, an innovative device to measure odour emission known as Electronic Nose (ENs) is presented. These devices allows a continuous monitoring in situ of odour emisions and are able to detect quick changes in the emission rate of odours avoiding a time-consuming use of a laboratory. In this article, the author comments the application of different sensors for a each particular case and compare in the use of an EN in different activities. In addition, a short introduction about the different e-noses available in the market is presented.