Fast GC E-Nose and Chemometrics for the Rapid Assessment of Basil Aroma

The aim of this work is to assess the potentialities of the synergistic combination of an ultra-fast chromatography-based electronic nose as a fingerprinting technique and multivariate data analysis in the context of food quality control and to investigate the influence of some factors, i.e., basil variety, cut, and year of crop, in the final aroma of the samples. A low = level data fusion approach coupled with Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and ANOVA-Simultaneous Component Analysis (ASCA) was used in order to analyze the chromatographic signals acquired with two different columns (MXT-5 and MXT-1701). While the PCA analysis results highlighted the peculiarity of some basil varieties, differing either by a higher concentration of some of the detected chemical compounds or by the presence of different compounds, the ASCA analysis pointed out that variety and year are the most relevant effects, and also confirmed the results of previous investigations.

Automated summary

This study aims to assess the potential of combining ultra-fast chromatography-based electronic nose with multivariate data analysis in food quality control, and investigate the impact of factors such as basil variety, cut, and year of crop on the aroma of samples. The analysis of chromatographic signals using a low-level data fusion approach combined with Principal Component Analysis and ANOVA-Simultaneous Component Analysis revealed that variety and year are the most relevant effects on the aroma.