Evaluation of the suitability of electronic nose based on fast GC for distinguishing between the plum spirits of different geographical origins

Abstract

Plum spirits are obtained exclusively via the alcoholic fermentation and distillation of meaty plums or must composed of plums, with or without stones. The European countries such as Poland, the Slovak Republic, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Romania are the leading producers of this alcoholic beverage. Information about the authentication of plum spirits produced in different countries can be found in the published literature. Gas chromatography, sensory analysis and spectroscopic techniques were the most frequently used research tools in those studies. So far, there were no available published reports about the suitability of an electronic nose based on fast GC for analyzing plum spirits. The volatile fractions of six samples of four different origins (Poland, Czech Republic, the Slovakia and Romania) with 40 % alcoholic content were analyzed using electronic nose based on fast GC (Heracles II). Four data analysis methods were used, namely principal component analysis, discriminant function analysis, soft independent modeling of class analogies and statistical quality control. In this work, for discrimination of results was used Euclidean distance between each sample, standard deviation and coefficient of variation. Conducted research was aimed at the evaluation of the suitability of an electronic nose based on fast GC for distinguishment between the volatile profiles of plum spirits of different geographical origins. These studies are the foundation for further work on discrimination of samples of plum spirits produced within a greater number of geographical regions. All the applied chemometric methods turned out to be effective.