Feasibility of detection of infested rice using an electronic nose

Electronic nose (E-nose) technology has a potential to be used for detecting insects in stored rice. It may provide a new method to detect the insect activity by providing smell prints for the headspace volatiles in rice mass. The objective of this research was to study the feasibility of using E-nose to detect infested rice during the storage process. An E-nose instrument (Cyranose 320) consisting of 32 sensors for detecting the volatile components produced in infested rice was used for this study. Storage rice with moisture content of 11.8 +/- 0.3% was used for conducting the tests. The rice samples were infested with different numbers of adult insects, including rice weevil (Sitophilus oryzae), lesser grain borer (Rhyzopertha dominica) and red flour beetle (Tribolium castaneum), in containers containing 1 kg of rice. The samples were stored at temperatures of 15 degrees C and 30 degrees C for four weeks. Air samples in the containers were taken for measurements every five days. The data were analyzed using the principal component analysis (PCA) method. The results revealed that the E-nose was not able to distinguish the clean rice and infested rice with lesser grain borer. While the E-nose had high response ability to the volatile components produced by rice weevil and red flour beetle after four weeks of storage. Consequently, the Enose could discriminate the clean and infested rice with above insects after four weeks of storage at temperature of 30 degrees C. Additionally, under the aforementioned conditions, the E-nose could not distinguish the clean and infested rice during the first, second and third weeks of storage. The classification accuracy of E-nose for clean and infested rice was low at storage temperature of 15 degrees C for the tested insets. It can be concluded that the E-nose has the capability to detect infested rice after four weeks of storage. (C) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study investigated the feasibility of using E-nose technology to detect insect infestations in stored rice. The results showed that E-nose could distinguish between clean and infested rice with different insects after four weeks of storage at 30 degrees C.