Multicomponent quantification with a novel method applied to gradient gas sensor microarray signal patterns

Industrial monitoring can be performed efficiently by an electronic nose (EN) not only in case of direct gas analysis but also if liquids have to be analysed for volatile components. The control of a binary biocide mixture contained in oil–water emulsions is presented as an example for a multicomponent quantification. A carrier gas was bubbled through the lubricant emulsion at elevated temperature to enhance the evaporation of the two biocide components to be determined by a gradient gas sensor microarray. A linear discriminant analysis trained with well-defined model mixtures showed a reasonable multicomponent quantification with a special two-dimensional interpolation.