Application of the electronic nose to the identification of different milk flavorings

In this paper, studies were conducted to determine the odor profile feature of five commercial milk flavorings (three natural milk flavorings and two synthetic flavorings) and one self-made enzyme induced milk flavoring prepared by lipolyzed milk fat. The discrimination of different flavor analysis methods was also evaluated. The ability of an electronic nose consisting of 18 metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) sensors to correlate with the solid phase micro extraction gas chromatography mass spectrometry (SPME-GC–MS) analysis and the sensory test of different milk flavorings was determined. The principal component analysis (PCA) of electronic nose sensor data has been compared with the data provided by GC–MS and sensory analysis. The results indicate that the electronic nose sensors can clearly and rapidly distinguish the difference among the synthetic milk flavorings, the natural milk flavorings and the enzyme induced milk flavoring. And the discrimination among different natural milk flavorings, which were easily confused by sensory tests, was also well performed by the electronic nose.