Research on odor interaction between aldehyde compounds via a partial differential equation (PDE) model.

Luchunyan Luchunyan,Chen Qu,Xingye Gu,Jiemin Liu,Xia Zhao

doi:10.3390/s150202888

Luchunyan Luchunyan, Chen Qu + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/s150202888

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Abstract

In order to explore the odor interaction of binary odor mixtures, a series of odor intensity evaluation tests were performed using both individual components and binary mixtures of aldehydes. Based on the linear relation between the logarithm of odor activity value and odor intensity of individual substances, the relationship between concentrations of individual constituents and their joint odor intensity was investigated by employing a partial differential equation (PDE) model. The obtained results showed that the binary odor interaction was mainly influenced by the mixing ratio of two constituents, but not the concentration level of an odor sample. Besides, an extended PDE model was also proposed on the basis of the above experiments. Through a series of odor intensity matching tests for several different binary odor mixtures, the extended PDE model was proved effective at odor intensity prediction. Furthermore, odorants of the same chemical group and similar odor type exhibited similar characteristics in the binary odor interaction. The overall results suggested that the PDE model is a more interpretable way of demonstrating the odor interactions of binary odor mixtures.

Highlights

Odor pollution usually causes serious annoyance in urban areas because of the pungent smell and health hazards [1]
Because OAV was usually calculated as the ratio between the concentration of an individual substance and its threshold concentration, the value of D/T ratio and OAV was theoretically the same for an individual odor sample
The odor interactions between two aldehyde compounds were investigated by using the partial differential equation (PDE) model

Summary

Introduction

Odor pollution usually causes serious annoyance in urban areas because of the pungent smell and health hazards [1]. The composition of odor pollutants and their concentrations are various in different fields. Because the odor interactions among these pollutants distinctly influence the odor qualities (e.g., odor intensity, odor type and hedonic tone) of their mixtures, sensory evaluation is always employed to make a more intuitive assessment of the odor pollution instead of instrumental analysis [2,3]. The odor intensity (OI) in particular is used as an index for the evaluation of air pollution [4]. The application of sensory evaluation is normally limited by the needs for experienced assessors and an odor-free testing environment. The relationship between the OI of a perception and the concentrations of stimuli needs to be carefully explored [5]

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