(Canyon)—It's the sweet smell of success that emanates lately from the Odor Lab at West Texas A&M University, which recently was awarded a $205,000 Major Research Instrumentation grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF).
The funds will be used by WTAMU's Division of Agriculture to acquire a specialized gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer-olfactometer to supplement ongoing research to measure and control feedlot odors.
"This technology will enable us to better measure chemical compounds in gases that are responsible for bad odors," Dr. David Parker, associate professor of agriculture and environmental science and principal investigator for the grant, said. "If we can take out the bad actors, the compounds in gases that make them offensive, it will be a victory for science."
Parker was joined in the effort to procure NSF funding by Dr. Robert E. DeOtte Jr., associate professor of environmental engineering, and by Dr. Brent W. Auvermann of the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station.
They say the instrumentation will be integrated into the undergraduate environmental science, biology, chemistry and agriculture curricula, while graduate students in agriculture will be actively involved in its use.
Moreover, the new instrumentation will be available to all of the Cooperative Research, Education and Extension Team, of which WTAMU is a partner along with such entities as the Texas Agricultural Extension Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The instrumentation will be built to specification by Microanalytics of Round Rock and is tentatively expected to be in full operation on campus no later than January.