Correlation of chemical and sensory data by principal factor analysis

A method to correlate chemical and sensory data regarding drinking water using principal component factor analysis was developed. The method was applied to data from the Philadelphia water department and the Philadelphia suburban water company. It involved establishing a pattern whereby a change of a chromatographic peak's detector response was paralleled by a sensory response of a flavour profile analysis panel for an organoleptic descriptor. The Weber-Fechner law, which stated that the odour intensity of a sensory descriptor was proportional to the logarithm of the concentration of the chemical concerned, was used in developing the method.