A Novel Humid Electronic Nose Based on Voltammetry

Abstract

We report herein the design, manufacture and use of a "humid electronic nose" prototype. Its operation is based on the use of voltammetric techniques, and it consists of an array of four working electrodes (i.e. Au, Pt, Ir and Rh) that were housed inside a homemade stainless steel cylinder and a fabric mesh made of nylon damped with a NaCl aqueous solution which was used as the supporting humid membrane. The "humid electronic nose" was tested for the discrimination of different samples displaying a different "aroma". The samples chosen involve aqueous solutions of different simple volatile samples (i.e. ammonia, acetone, acetic acid and 6-amino-1-hexanol) and different food samples (i.e. onion, coffee and Roquefort cheese). PCA studies from the response obtained by the "humid electronic nose" allowed discriminate between the different samples studied.