What’s that Smell?

Martin Perkins

23rd May 2018

LCGC, Odour, Phine Banks, Selected Ion Flow Tube Mass Spectrometry, SIFT-MS, Smell, Syft Technologies, Webinar,


The detection of odour or trying to find out what it is you are smelling is a complex challenge. The human nose is extremely sensitive to some compounds meaning that we can smell them at very low levels.

Odorous compounds also pose a challenging problem for traditional analytical techniques due to the diverse range of compounds we can smell. The difficulties in detecting odour made more difficult due to the constant movement of volatiles in the air, making them hard to trap or collect for analysis.

Last week Syft Technologies, in collaboration with LCGC, presented a webinar on quantitative real-time odour monitoring using SIFT-MS. The advantages a technique like the SIFT-MS gives are the speed, selectivity, quantitation and direct analysis in real-time.  A number of examples were discussed including:

  • a gelatine factory where they were looking to find the source of particular compounds generated
  • continuous monitoring from a chicken factory
  • odour monitoring of industrial emissions beyond the fenceline
  • solvent monitoring at Samsung Electronics
  • a range of lab-based applications using the GERSTEL autosampler

If any of these topics would be of interest to you, you can find the Webinar Summary here, and watch the webinar recording here.

If you would like further information, to have a look at the instrument, or to discuss your potential application, please get in contact with us by either ringing the office on 01223 279210, or via email.