Abstract
Food preservatives are compounds that are used for the treatment of food to improve the shelf life. In the food industry, it is necessary to monitor all processes for both safety and quality of the product. An electronic nose (or e-nose) is a biomimetic olfactory system that could find numerous industrial applications, including food quality control. Commercial electronic noses are based on sensor arrays composed by a combination of different sensors, which include conductometric metal oxide devices. Metal oxide nanowires are considered among the most promising materials for the fabrication of novel sensing devices, which can enhance the overall performances of e-noses in food applications. The present work reports the fabrication of a novel sensor array based on SnO2, CuO, and WO3 nanowires deposited on top of μHPs provided by ams Sensor Solutions Germany GmbH. The array was tested for the discrimination of four typical compounds added to food products or used for their treatment to increase the shelf life: ethanol, acetone, nitrogen dioxide, and ozone. Results are very promising; the sensors array was able to operate for a long time, consuming less than 50 mW for each single sensor, and principal component analysis (PCA) confirmed that the device was able to discriminate between different compounds.
Highlights
Nowadays, we are living in an era of images in which vision is considered the most important of the human senses
Results are very promising; the sensors array was able to operate for a long time, consuming less than 50 mW for each single sensor, and principal component analysis (PCA) confirmed that the device was able to discriminate between different compounds
While research is focusing on the enhancements of their performances to promote further use of such systems in the food industry, a special attention is devoted to reducing the power consumption of each single sensor to allow the fabrication of portable or battery operated equipment
Summary
We are living in an era of images in which vision is considered the most important of the human senses. Vision is only one of the five human senses: vision, hearing, olfaction, taste, and touch. Among these senses, olfaction is certainly the most mysterious and complex one, even if it has historically been considered of a lower status in relation to the other senses [1]. Olfaction in humans has lost the importance that it retains in animals, as it is often involved during prey hunting and feeding [2]. It is one of our innate warning systems in the case of danger, for example, in the case of fire. Human beings possess an excellent ability to detect and discriminate odors, but they typically have great difficulty in identifying particular odorants
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