Development of an Electronic Nose System for Evaluation of Freshness of Pork

The aim of this study was to develop a portable electronic nose system for freshness measurement of stored pork. An electronic nose system was constructed using seven different MOS sensor array. To determine the quality change of pork with storage time, the samples were divided into ten groups in terms of storage time with an increment of 2 day up to 19 storage days. GC-MS, total bacteria's count (TBC), thiobarbituric acid reactive substance (TBARS), and pH analyses as well as the analysis of the electronic nose system measurement were performed to monitor the freshness change of the samples. To investigate the performance of the electronic nose system for detecting the change of freshness of pork, the acquired signal values of the system were compared with those of GC-MS, TBC, TBARS, and pH analysis values. According to principal component analysis (PCA) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) with the signals of the electronic nose system for the pork samples, the sample groups were clearly separated into two groups of 1-9 days and 11-19 days, and four groups of 1-3 days, 5-9 days, 11 days, and 13-19 days respectively. The results show that the electronic nose system has potential for evaluating freshness of pork.