Electronic nose for ham discrimination

In this paper, we report a specific application of an electronic nose based on a semiconductor thin film sensor array for the discrimination of different hams. The sensing elements of the sensor array were undoped and doped (Cr, Pt) SnO2 thin films prepared by sputtering process. A system based on a static headspace sampling was used for the injection of the volatile compounds coming from the hams. Data analysis was performed by two pattern recognition methods: principal component analysis (PCA) and probabilistic neuronal network (PNN). The obtained results show that the electronic nose was able to identify the ham samples clearly.