Standardising and validating aromatic profile analysis by an electronic nose

Abstract

The electronic nose is one of the most innovative techniques which had been used in the analysis of food and other aroma matrices. This device imitates the human olfactory system through sensors which are partially specific for different groups of volatile chemicals and differentiating and classifying food (by involving multivariate statistics) and it is also used for establishing quality and control parameters. Although the technique has been increasingly applied in research and industry, few studies have been published in the scientific literature referring to validating its use as an analytical methodology. This work's main objective was to standardise and validate the aromatic profile analysis method for differentiating apiculture products: honey, pollen and propolis. Standardisation involved modifying sample preparation and system variables while validation involved analysis of repeatability and intermediate repeatability of the method and establishing its uncertainty. The results showed that it was possible to set suitable operational parameters for each apicultural product while validation data showed that this technique did not reveal significant differences as reliable values were obtained when using this device as an analysis and quality control tool.