Detecting odorous materials in water using quartz crystal microbalance sensors

Water drawn from rivers into purification plants must be checked for the presence of odorous materials because oil or organic-solvent contamination of the water may occur. If the detection of odorous materials in water is untimely or fails, the consequences can be serious. Therefore, the water must be checked continuously. We have developed a water-monitoring system that uses a highly sensitive electronic nose consisting of quartz crystal microbalance sensors to detect odorous materials in water. The nose is sensitive enough to detect petroleum hydrocarbons without water vapor at a low-ppb level. However, the nose is very sensitive to humidity and temperature. We have thus developed a method for accurately maintaining the humidity and temperature in the sensor cell. Experimental results show that the developed system can quickly detect contaminated water that was mixed with gasoline, kerosene, or benzene (concentration: several hundred ppb level), and we should be able to classify the pollutant by using pattern recognition of the dynamic sensor response.