NORMALIZATION OF THE OLFACTORY RESPONSE OF AN ODOR PANEL

摘要

Assuming that traceability among human panelists/panels exists, a model was developed to quantify the relationship of olfactory responses among panelists/panels to an environmental odor and to a reference odor (n-butanol). A data set containing 252 cases was established from 44 people who evaluated odor samples on a custom-made olfactometer. The model of observed data is significant at the level of a = 0.0001, and should be applicable to the general population having normal olfactory response and to all environmental odors. By using the model, the panel's response is normalized to that of a panel whose n-butanol detection threshold is 40 ppbv, which is the geometric mean of qualified panelists defined by the draft standard of the European Committee for Normalisation. Thus, both the accuracy and repeatability of the odor concentration measurement are increased significantly. Also, non-selected persons can be substituted for qualified panelists to achieve the same, or even higher accuracy measurement results on environmental odors