Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Talanta journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/talanta An electronic tongue as a classifer tool for assessing perfume olfactory family and storage time-period Amira Jarboui a,b , Ítala M.G. Marx a,c , Ana C.A. Veloso d,e , Daniel Vilaça f , Daniela M. Correia e,f , Luís G. Dias a , Yassin Mokkadem b , António M. Peres a,g,∗ a Centro de Investigação de Montanha (CIMO), ESA, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Campus Santa Apolónia, 5300-253, Bragança, Portugal b Université Libre de Tunis, Avenue Khéreddine – Pacha Tunis, 30, 1002, Tunis, Tunisia c LAQV/REQUIMTE, Laboratory of Bromatology and Hydrology, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Porto, Rua de Jorge Viterbo Ferreira, 228, 4050-313, Porto, Portugal d Instituto Politécnico de Coimbra, ISEC, DEQB, Rua Pedro Nunes, Quinta da Nora, 3030-199, Coimbra, Portugal e CEB - Centre of Biological Engineering, University of Minho, Campus de Gualtar, 4710-057, Braga, Portugal f NORTEMPRESA Perfume Lab, Rua Parque Bouça das Mouras, 56, 4715-216, Braga, Portugal g Laboratory of Separation and Reaction Engineering - Laboratory of Catalysis and Materials (LSRE-LCM), ESA, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Campus Santa Apolónia, 5300-253, Bragança, Portugal ARTICLEINFO Keywords: Perfume olfactory family Perfume storage time-period Potentiometric electronic tongue Linear discriminant analysis Simulated annealing algorithm ABSTRACT The identifcation of more than three perfumes is difcult and no analytical tool can completely replace the humanolfactorysystemforfragranceclassifcation.Indeed,noanalyticalsystemcanmimicthehuman fragrance perception, being the recognition of perfume aroma patterns by conventional or sensor-based analytical tools a challenging task. For the perfume sector, the possibility of applying fast, cost-efective and green analytical devices for perfume analysis would represent a huge economic revenue. Since the perfume aroma pattern will depend on the composition of the liquid phase and on the difusion properties of their volatile components, this work aimed to apply a potentiometric electronic tongue, comprising non-specifc cross-sensitive lipid polymeric membranes, combined with chemometric techniques, as a novel perfume classifer. The multisensors device allowed establishing perfumes’ unique fngerprints, which were successfully used to discriminate men from women perfumes, to identify the perfume aroma family (Citric-Aromatic, Floral, Floral-Fruity, Floral-Oriental, Floral-Woody, Woody-Oriental and Woody-Spicy) and, assessing the perfume storage time-period (≤ 9 months; 9–24 months; and, ≥ 24 months). The established linear discriminant models were based on single-run po- tentiometric profles gathered by sub-sets of sensors selected using the simulated annealing algorithm, which enabled achieving correct classifcation rates of 93–100% (for leave-one-out cross-validation procedure). The satisfactory performance of the electronic tongue demonstrates the versatility of the proposed approach as a practical perfume preliminary classifer sensor device, which industrial application may be foreseen in a near future, contributing to a green-sustained economic growth of the perfume industry. 1. Introduction It is expected that the global market for Fragrances and Perfume exceedsUS$40billionby2020[1].Aperfumemaycomprisefrom10to 100 individual ingredients [2], which are usually complex mixtures of synthetic or natural (e.g. essential oils) organic compounds (e.g., al- dehydes, alcohols, lactones, esters and terpene derivatives). So, asses- sing the perfume composition, identifying the main aroma family as well as assessing perfume-stability and longevity is not a straightfor- ward task [1,2]. As most of perfume ingredients are volatile or semi- volatile, gas chromatography (GC), in combination with mass spectro- metry (MS) is, by far, the most used analytical technique [3]. However, GC-MS does not provide a direct qualitative information about the sensory perception of the aroma molecules, being needed to establish calibration models for correlating this qualitative information [1]. Thus, GC-Olfactometry (GCO) or GC-snifng techniques coupled with condensed Phase Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy or TimeofFlight-MS(ToFMS)mayberequired[2,4].Thesetechniquesare time-consuming, expensive and require skilled technicians, which may be beyond the economic possibilities of low-medium local perfume https://doi.org/10.1016/j.talanta.2019.120364 Received 7 June 2019; Received in revised form 13 September 2019; Accepted 15 September 2019 ∗ Corresponding author. Centro de Investigação de Montanha (CIMO), ESA, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Campus Santa Apolónia, 5300-253, Bragança, Portugal. E-mail address: peres@ipb.pt (A.M. Peres). Talanta 208 (2020) 120364 Available online 16 September 2019 0039-9140/ © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. T