E-nose and Attenuated Total Reflectance-Fourier Transform Infrared data to estimate the shelf-life of fresh-cut Barattiere packaged in polypropylene or in biodegradable polylactic acid bags

Abstract

Fresh-cut Barattiere was packaged in polylactic acid or polypropylene bags for 11 days at 4 °C. According to the quality traits and the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) profiles, fruit resulted marketable up to 7 days, irrespective of the packaging material. A significant relationship between VOCs and Electronic-nose sensors (S) was achieved, highlighting that the sensor S5 (sensitive to hydrocarbons and aromatic compounds) and the related VOCs (1-nonanol and cis-6-nonenol) can be indicators of freshness, while the sensors S2 (broadrange), S4 (sensitive to hydrogen) and S6 (broad-methane), correlated to some specific esters, can be associated to the stored products. Partial least square regression (PLSR) analysis performed on E-nose sensors allowed to obtain a model (R2 = 0.84 in validation) to estimate the storage days of fresh-cut Barattiere. PLSR analysis was also carried on Attenuated Total Reflectance-Fourier Transform Infrared (ATR-FTIR) data obtaining a predictive model with higher performance (R2 = 0.91 in validation). In conclusion, both techniques were able to make suitable predictions of fresh-cut Barattiere shelf-life.