Discrimination of selected fungi species based on their odour profile using prototypes of electronic nose instruments

The paper presents practical application of an electronic nose technique to fast and efficient discrimination of the samples of different fungi species such as: Penicillium chrysogenum, Cladosporium herbarum, Rhizopus oryzae, Alternaria alternata. Two prototypes of electronic nose instrument were utilized for investigation of discrimination capability with respect to odour profile of these fungi: the first prototype was based on MOS-type chemical sensors, the second one was based on gas chromatography technique. The fungi samples were prepared as the aqueous suspensions, the headspace of which was subjected to analysis. The data were analysed using the multidimensional methods: PCA, LDA and k-NN. The obtained results confirmed legitimacy of application of the electronic nose technique to identification and discrimination of fungi species. In case of the gas chromatography-based electronic nose prototype correct classification of the fungi species was at the level of 80-100% depending on the classification method employed, in case of the electronic nose prototype utilizing the MOS-type sensors correct classification was at the level of 55-100%.