Landfill site monitoring with the Pico-1 e-nose

In this contribution we present the results obtained for the monitoring of a refuse disposal site performed with the Pico-1 electronic nose developed at the University of Brescia. We first report the preparatory laboratory measurements done on four compounds which are known to be present in refuse disposal site. Then we show the results for two sets of landfill site samples. A first set of measurements permitted to clearly distinguish with a PCA score plot between four odor intensities originating from different locations inside and near to the landfill site. Successive Pico-1 measurements were related to the olfactory analysis performed by panel of experts in order to predict their judgments. The plot relating the scores values of the first principal component to the odor units shows a saturation of the sensor responses for very strong odors (waste mud).