Assessment of odor activity value coefficient and odor contribution based on binary interaction effects in waste disposal plant

- We analyzed the occurrence and OAV of odorants in a food waste disposal plant.
- We proposed odor activity value coefficient (γ) evaluating odor interaction effects.
- γ reflected antagonistic, additive and synergistic effect, and revised OAV into OAF.
- Correlation between SOAF and OC was much stronger than that of SOAV.
- Odor contribution of TMA was greatly improved by synergistic effect in summer.

Odor activity value (OAV) has been widely used for the assessment of odor pollution from various sources. However, little attention has been paid to the extreme OAV variation and potential inaccuracies of odor contribution assessment caused by odor interaction effects. The objective of this study is to assess the odor interaction effect for precise assessment of odor contribution. In this paper, samples were collected from a food waste disposal plant, and analyzed by instrumental and olfactory method to conclude odorants' occurrence and OAV. Then odor activity value coefficient (γ) was first proposed to evaluate the type and the level of binary interaction effects based on determination of OAV variation. By multiplying OAV and γ, odor activity factor (OAF) was used to reflect the real OAV. Correlation between the sum of OAF and odor concentration reached 80.0 ± 5.7%, which was 10 times higher than the sum of OAV used before. Results showed that hydrogen sulfide contributed most (annual average 66.4 ± 15.8%) to odor pollution in the waste disposal plant. However, as odor intensity of samples in summer rising, odor contribution of trimethylamine increased to 48.3 ± 3.7% by the strong synergistic interaction effect, while odor contribution of phenol decreased to 0.1 ± 0.02% for the increasing antagonistic interaction effect.

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