Characterization of smelling contaminations on textiles using a gradient microarray as an electronic nose

Visually clean textiles and garments are often cleaned to remove unpleasant odors rather than to eliminate substantial dirt. In order to minimize the amount of washing agent for ecological and cost considerations the type and the strength of laundry odor contaminations as well as the type of the fabrics have to be taken into account. Therefore, an electronic nose (EN) is an appropriate analytical device to collect this information. Because of its high sensitivity and discrimination power, its ability to be integrated into a washing machine, its continuous mode operation and its easy fabrication the Karlsruhe Micronose KAMINA with the unique gradient microarray of 38 sensor elements was investigated for fabric discrimination and odor determination. Using an air flow of 1 l/min cotton, wool and other model fabrics with and without some representative odors have been found to be separable by the KAMINA system while the odor contaminations could be distinguished and quantitatively determined. Hence, an autonomous prewashing odor monitor for laundry seem to be feasible.