Technical sheet
- Odor concentration & odor perception threshold determination
with triangular choice, yes & no or blind methods.
- Evaluation of the odor relative intensity level, hedonic tone
or individual appreciation on a 1 to 10 scale. Pure or known dilution
levels can be used to determine the evolution of perception with
dilution.
- Odor intensity determination with comparison to a reference
gas (n-butanol). This task can be done by using pure or known
dilution levels to determine the evolution of the intensity with
dilution.
- Panel calibration with n-butanol.
The system
ODILE™ is composed of several units: dilution
unit, operating system software, odor station, air purification
system and pressurized vessel.
Dilution unit
The dilution unit consists of several mass flow-controllers
& a saturator for:
- obtaining a 1 to 2 000 000 dilution range without predilution
and unlimited step units between each dilution level;
- generating air flow with n-butanol concentrations within 5
to 75 000 PPB(v);
- furnishing pure air flows to initialize the olfactory epithelium
of panel members and proceeding to the triangular evaluation of
the perception thresholds;
- purging the system between jury exposures;
- proceeding to a system cleaning after each olfactometric analysis;
- activating the auto-cleaning system for all pipes and electromechanical
parts after each day of use.
The olfactometer is designed to prevent contamination
between jury exposures and high concentrations before voting.
Operating system software
ODILE™ includes operating system software running
on Microsoft Windows 95, 98, 2000 or NT for electronic control of
the unit. The software allows:
- dilution presentations to the jury;
- a real-time results analysis;
- using several algorithms of dilution presentations for the
jury;
- a jury member evaluation procedure with suggested acceptance
or rejection;
- the optimization of the gas sample’s dilution preparation
sequence;
- results computation by several techniques such as ASTM-679-91,
ASTM-E544-75, CEN TC264/WG2’ODOURS’, MUC 90 by-law
and other dose-response analyses;
- statistic analysis of answer dispersion for the whole jury
and for each individual;
- data archiving in three complementary databases with follow-ups
for each individual’s history as well as coherence with
former analysis;
- printing the analysis report;
- evaluating the jury members' performance and sensitiveness.
A window in the graphic interface shows
the dilution values, the jury’s answers and the real-time
statistic analysis results.
The operating system software and the electronic control
card will be installed and configured at olfactometer’s delivery
on a PC. The PC must have the minimum characteristics: (Pentium,
200 MHz), two serial ports, Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, or 2000 operating
system, 64 MB of RAM, 50 MB of hard drive disk space and a CD-ROM
drive.
Odor sniffing station
The olfactometer is equipped with six odor stations
operating simultaneously. Each station consists of three to five
odor sniffing ports and a voting box for communication between the
jury and the operator.
Three sniffing ports are used for the olfactory perception
thresholds analysis. The odorous gas is brought to one of them while
the two remaining ports are fed pure air. A random rotation of the
odorous gas feed is assured by an algorithm. Using this method,
jury members are subjected to a blind test.
The fourth port is designated for odor intensity quantification
and the last one is for n-butanol comparisons.
Air purification system
In order to obtain pure and well conditioned air,
ODILE™ is equipped with several devices:
- Pressurized vessel
- Active coal filter
- Particle filters
- Oil filter
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