Due to the distribution of low quality products, adulteration, counterfeit on the Ukrainian market, the
widening of export-import supplies, it is too important to develop criteria and methods for the identification
domestic and exported food products, detection of adulteration, techniques and methods assessing quality
and early spoilage screening of food products using modern express methods of analysis.
Such method is an electronic nose system based on chemical sensors, for example, piezoelectric quartz
microweighing, combined with complex computer algorithms registration, processing and decision making
(«artificial intelligence»).
Odor is one of the most significant parameters among the sensory properties of foods. The representative
flavor of volatile compounds, so-called fingerprint, may provide knowledge about safety and particular
characteristic of food, acting sometimes as an indicator of process mistake as well. Off-flavors may include
substances originating from the metabolism of spoilage microorganisms, bacteria and fungi; which may
naturally or accidentally contaminate the products during their production.
Electronic noses (EN) are instruments based on an array of semi low selective sensors that are selected
on the chemical affinity to individual components of the analyzed gas mix and vapors and pattern
recognition methods. ENs have been applied in various food contexts such as process monitoring,
freshness evaluation, shelf-life investigation, authenticity determination, and product traceability.
The object of our research is express methods development of identification, estimation of quality and early
spoilage screening of dairy and meat products using multisensory electronic nose system based on piezosensors.
The absolute advantages of electronic sensory analyzers are their versatility, portability, ability to
automate measurements and interpretation of signals, reproducibility of results.Financial support of ON.2/QREN/EU Project no.13198/2010, Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT, Portugal) and COMPETE/QREN/EU (CIMO strategic project PEst-OE/AGR/UI0690/2011). A.L. Antonio, L. Barros and J.C.M. Barreira also thank to FCT, POPH-QREN and FSE for their grants (SFRH/PROTEC/67398/2010, SFRH/BPD/4609/2008 and SFRH/BPD/72802/2010, respectively)
