Comparison and integration of arrays of quartz resonators and metal-oxide semiconductor chemoresistors in the quality evaluation of olive oils

Olive oil analysis is considered as a promising application of electronic n oses. In this paper, two electronic noses, based on different sensor techno logies (quartz resonators and metal-oxides chemoresistors) are applied to t he measure of samples of olive oils of different qualities and values. Amon g them, samples of oil produced from organically fanned olives have also be en measured. While both the sensor systems provided very similar images for the commercial oils defining a sort of quality growing direction in their principal component analysis score plots, the organically farmed product ha s been differently interpreted by the two arrays. Merging of data, both at high and low abstraction level, shown that the co- operation of the two sensor arrays identified the organically farmed produc t different from the commercial samples. Details about the single sensors behavior, and the option of sensors data f usion will be illustrated and discussed. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.