The evaluation of quality of post-harvest oranges and apples by means of an electronic nose

The measure of quality of post-harvest fruits is considered a promising, ap plication field for electronic nose technology such as the detection of def ects. Among the possible defects present in fruits those due to post-harves t treatment are particularly important. Among them defects like mealiness ( due to post-harvest over-ripening), skin damage (due to mechanical or tempe rature stresses), and infections affect strongly the perception of consumer s. They have to be avoided in order to achieve high quality products. In this paper, the study of the variations of aroma of oranges, during the storage, and apples, due to the presence of mealiness and skin damage by me ans of a thickness shear mode quartz resonators- (TSMR) based electronic no se, is illustrated and discussed. Results have evidenced that the electronic nose has enough sensitivity and resolution to distinguish among the various classes and to correctly predic t the amount of defects (for apples) and storage days (for oranges). (C) 20 01 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.