Monitoring of biofiltration efficiency of bioreactor exhaust air by an electronic nose

In this paper, the application of an electronic nose to monitor the efficiency of a bioreactor odour removal by a biological air filter (BAF) is presented. The bioreactor studied is part of a regenerative biological life support system for long term manned space missions in development by the European Space Agency. Results show that the array of metalloporphyrins coated thickness shear mode resonators has a sufficient sensitivity to monitor the efficiency of the BAF unit for this application.