Electronic nose to detect sulphate reducing bacteria which is an agent of corrosion

Sulfate reducing bacteria (SRB) is a nonpathogenic and anaerobic bacterium which can produce enzyme to accelerate the reduction of sulfate compounds to hydrogen sulphate that corrodes metal. This paper will study the possibility of using electronic nose which consists of chemical sensing system, data acquisition system and pattern recognition system such as artificial neural network to detect hydrogen sulphide. There are a few methods of detecting SRB such as laboratory analysis and field test kit but the procedures are costly and take longer time, within 1 to 2 days. Study shows that electronic nose can be used to detect SRB by detecting hydrogen sulphide that is produced during reduction process. The electronic nose can detect hydrogen sulphide within 16 hours where the detection period is reduced from 30% to 65%. Study also shows that the electronic nose with micro hotplate sensor base will reduce 86% of power consumption compared to electronic nose with alumina ceramic sensor base.