Implementation of a Machine Olfaction for the Detection of Adulteration in Cow Ghee

An olfactory machine system based on eight MOS sensors was designed to detect pure cow ghee from the adulterated with various proportions of vegetable oil and animal fat. Designed system includes data acquisition system, sensors, sensors chamber, sample box, power supply, connections, electric valves, air pump and air filter. The sensor array was consisted of the 8 MOS sensors that each of them react to specific volatile compounds. These sensors are widely used in olfactory machines because of their high chemical stability, high durability, low response to moisture and affordable prices. These are the most commonly used sensors in electronic nose system. To prepare samples with different percentages of adulteration, animal body fat and refined vegetable oils were added to pure cow ghee. In order to carry out the experiments, the sample was placed in sample box and in the baseline correction step (200 seconds), clean air was passed through the sensors to transmit the response of sensor array to steady state. At the injection step (180 seconds), the sample headspace was transmitted and passed through sensors chamber.  Output voltage of each sensor depends on the type of sensor and its sensitivity. At the cleaning step (120 seconds) the clean air was passed through sensors to get the sensor array responsive to a stable state. Also, at this step the pump removed the odor remaining inside the sample container and system was prepared for the next test. The signals obtained from the sensors were recorded and then pre-processed.

An eight-sensory olfactory machine system (MOS) was designed to detect pure cow ghee from the presence of vegetable oil and animal fat oil. In PCA analysis, the variance between samples was 97% and 98%, respectively. According to the results the radar graph of PCA analysis, it can be concluded that the sensors No 2 (TGS822), 3(MQ136), 4(MQ9) and 8(TGS2620) have the highest and sensor 6 (MQ135) has the lowest ability in classification. The MQ135 sensor reacts to the detection of ammonia, benzene, and sulfide. In other words these gases did not play important role in separating of cow ghee from other mixed oils.