Electronic Nose for Monitoring of Livestock Farm Odors (Poultry Farms)

Abstract

Malodor emission from the poultry farms is a serious issue for the environment. This research proposes a fundamental study of malodor monitoring in the poultry farms using gas detecting equipment and electronic nose (e-nose) system in-lab developed for measurement and analysis of the livestock farm odors. This electronic nose consists of eight gas sensors, specifically selected for the main volatile compounds emitted from livestock farms. The main components of this e-nose include a sensor chamber, a sensor array, a microcontroller, a signal conditioning circuits and wireless sensor networks. Our e-nose machine can classify different odors and quantify the odor level. Principal component analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis pattern recognition technique were used to interpret the acquired data. In this paper, a poultry farm was studied by using a portable e-nose and an e-nose station that can perform real-time monitoring of the odor. Furthermore, a gas detector equipment was applied to measure ammonia, hydrogen sulfide and volatile organic compounds. The results have shown that electronic nose is able to identify the source of malodor, classify different odors and monitor malodor in real-time in poultry farm. Ammonia gas was found mostly inside the poultry house, where it accounts for the largest source of malodor.