The sweet smell of success
15 Jan 2000
As job descriptions go, it isn't to be sniffed at. A panel of professional sniffers, at the new Project Research Environmental Consultants (PREC) olfactometry laboratory at Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, concentrates on sorting out the roses from the rancid.
The laboratory offers odour measurement services for to be used in source testing, to determine emission rates; assessment of the efficiency of end-of-pipe equipment; comparison of the specific odours of different substances; and characterisation of odours in terms of their `relative unpleasantness'.
The process requires the smell testers to identify which of two air streams contains a diluted sample of an odour.
