Development of odor recorder with enhanced recording capabilities based on real-time mass spectrometry

The new prototype of odor recorder based on real-time mass spectrometry was developed. Based on this developed system, a set of sensor outputs with high selectivities to the odor components are easily obtained from the available m/z's so that a large number of odor components can be used with minimized collinearity. Moreover, the gas-phase target odor can be measured and reproduced in real-time with wide dynamic range based on the improved odor blending method. In recording process, the mass patterns of all odor components were used as the database data and the nonnegative least squares method was performed to estimate recipe of the target odor. It was found that this system could accurately estimate the recipe of the target odor within 25 s using only small set of m/z's and could reproduce the odor with the same impression of smell as the target one. Thus, it was confirmed that the recording wide range of odor in real time could be realized based on this developed odor recorder.