This study investigated the odor dilution rate at 15 locations around three schools in Seoul using an onsite olfactometer. In addition, odor intensity, odor quality, and hedonic tone by direct sensory method were measured along with measurement of the field odor dilution rate, and instrument analysis using odor sensor array and TD-GC was also measured. Onsite olfactometer measurements show that only one of the three schools measured odors exceeding the strict emission acceptance standard of 10 at three points. The average odor intensity at each point measured by the direct sensory method of five persons was in the range of 2.7 to 0.3. The difference in the number of odor dilution rates around schools in Seoul could be related to the level of income by region. The odor environment around each school was judged to be well managed in areas with higher income levels, indicating a lower odor dilution rate. The correlation coeffcient between the odor intensity measured by the direct sensory method and the onsite olfactometer was 0.79, indicating high correlation. The correlation coefficient of sensor array and TD-GC toward the odor intensity was -0.28 and 0.02, respectively. This suggests that a method based on a person's sense of smell should be introduced when measuring low-level odor dilution rates in non-industrial areas, such as school zones.

Environmental fundamental facilities have different odor emission characteristics depending on the type of treatment facilities. To overcome the limitations of the olfactometry method, research needs to be conducted on how to calculate the dilution factor from the individual odor concentrations. The aim of this study was to determine the air dilution factor estimated from manually measured concentration data of individual odor substances (22 specified odor species) in three environmental treatment facilities. In order to calculate the optimum algorism for each environmental fundamental facility, three types of facilities were selected, the concentration of odor substances in the exhaust gas was measured, and the contribution of the overall dilution factor was evaluated. To estimate the dilution factor, four to six algorism were induced and evaluated by correlation analysis between substance concentration and complex odor data. Dilution factors from O municipal water treatment (MWT) and Y livestock wastewater treatment (LWT) facilities showed high level of dilution factors, because concentration levels of hydrogen sulfide and methylmercaptan, which had low odor threshold concentrations, were high. In S food waste treatment (FWT) facility, the aldehyde group strongly influenced dilution the factor (dominant substance: acetaldehyde, i-valeraldhyde and methylmercaptan). In the evaluation of four to six algorism to estimate the dilution factor, the vector algorism (described in the text) was optimum for O MWT and Y LWT, while the algorism using the sum of the top-three dominant substances showed the best outcome for S FWT. In further studies, estimation of the dilution factor from simultaneously monitored data by odor sensors will be developed and integrated with the results in this study.

The correlation analysis between odor sensor and air dilution olfactometry method with odor emission facilities was performed for the real-time evaluation of odor emitted from the 13 facilities. The total correlation was less significant for all facilities due to various emission characteristics of odor. The correlation for the individual facility, however, showed a higher correlation coefficient (R=0.7371~0.9897). Especially, the strong correlation (above 0.9) was observed for the industry type with the odor characteristics like tobacco, styrofoam, acetic acid, and burning smell. The repeated odor measurements using the odor sensor showed good reproducibility with the mean relative standard deviation of 5.06%. The odor sensor could be useful tools for identifying and evaluating odor with an olfactometry in field, if the use and proofreading of the odor sensor are improved by a standardized method.

The object of this study is to investigate the relationship between the air dilution sensory test and the threshold odor number (TON) method for evaluating the odor of domestic wastewater, plating plant wastewater, food plant wastewater and lake water. The dilution factor of raw wastewater evaluated by the air dilution sensory test was in the order of food plant > plating plant > domestic > lake, and that evaluated by the threshold odor number method was in the order of food plant > domestic > plating plant > lake. The same results were obtained when the raw wastewater and lake water were diluted 2 and 5 times with pure water. The relative geometric standard deviation determined from the threshold values of each panel on the air dilution sensory test was much larger than that calculated from results derived from the threshold odor number method. The relative geometric standard deviation obtained from samples with a low dilution factor was greater. There was a very good linear correlation (correlation coefficient = 0.968~1.000) between the air dilution sensory test and the threshold odor number method. But, the reduction in odor intensity (the slopes of regression curves) by dilution was dependent on the types of the odor-emission sources.