Development of rapid and non-destructive electric nose (E-nose) system for shelf life evaluation of different edible seeds

Shelf life estimation is crucial in ensuring the quality of food products. However, traditional methods are timeconsuming and inefficient. Therefore, there is an urgent need for simple, efficient and rapid techniques for quality assessments. An electronic nose (E-nose) serves as a solution by rapidly and accurately detecting release of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) during food deterioration. This study aims to develop Arduino-Uno R3 microprocessor based E-nose, equipped with MQ4, MQ5, MQ9 and MQ135 sensors for evaluating shelf life of different edible seeds over the storage period of 150 days. Sensor values were recorded, revealing a significant increase (p-value & LE; 0.05) in MQ5 sensor readings for Nigella seeds from 349 to 480. Sensor values were positively correlated with physical, microbiological and Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy parameters. Maximum peak shifts were observed from 3000 cm-1 to 2800 cm-1 and 1500 cm-1 to 1000 cm-1 wavenumbers. Hence, this study provides successful E-nose system to determine shelf life of seeds.