Taint and odour related quality monitoring of two food packaging board products using gas chromatography, gas sensors and sensory analysis

Headspace gas chromatography and an "electronic nose" were used to measure emissions of volatile organic compounds from two different board products. Data obtained from the gas chromatography measurements were processed using multivariate analysis, which showed to be a useful method for monitoring process changes that occurred during board production. The results indicated that after storage there was a strong correlation between a commonly used "indicator compound", hexanal, and the emissions of a large number of volatile organic compounds. Multivariate data analysis was also used to visualise relative differences between samples, and changes in these during storage. The "electronic nose", using the experimental conditions described in this article, was capable of measuring differences between samples of different jumbo rolls of the same board product. A good correlation between results obtained from the "electronic nose" measurements, the headspace gas chromatography measurements, and the sensory analysis tests, was observed. The "electronic nose", in combination with multivariate data analysis techniques, thus show a clear potential for future applications as an at-line or on-line instrument for quality monitoring of board products.