An Analytical Approach for Fast Odour Evaluation of Recycled Food–Grade Paperboard Materials Using HS–SPME–MS-Nose Technology

Recycled paperboard is frequently used as a raw material for food packaging. As consumers are becoming more sensitive to off-flavours, paperboard packaging needs to contain a low-odour potential when brought in contact with food products. As paperboard manufacturers, printing companies and food producers have a lack of time for solving off-flavour problems, sensory testing and conventionally used gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) techniques are frequently too time consuming. To meet the needs of fast and reliable odour analysis of recycled paperboard, MS-based electronic nose (MS-nose) technology was evaluated in this study. As this technique is based on MS identification, chemical information of the volatiles could be obtained. A hyphenated configuration, consisting of a headspace solid phase microextraction (HS–SPME) autosampler coupled to an MS-nose instrument, was discussed. The odorous volatiles of four recycled paperboard samples, obtained by GC–MS analysis, were used for feature selection of ion masses needed for statistical data analysis of the MS-nose results. Besides, the sensitivity and the reliability of the HS–SPME technique were tested by the statistical correlation of the obtained GC–MS data with descriptive sensory test results. The HS–SPME–MS-nose analysis of the paperboard samples resulted in an objective classification, based on differences between diagnostic mass fragments of lipid oxidation volatiles, volatiles formed by microbiological activity and residual ink and coating volatiles. On the basis of the obtained results, the MS-nose approach could be used as a fast odour characterization technique for product quality control of cellulose-based packaging materials. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.