Classification of Selected Essential Oil from Family Zingiberaceae Using E-Nose and Discriminant Factorial Analysis (DFA) Techniques: An Initial Study

Essential oils are very valuable natural resources and considered as secondary metabolites. They are produced from several parts of aromatic plant by using different type of extraction techniques. Each technique produced slightly different output oil yield and smell however they produced the same major chemicals compound markers when they are analysed using chemical analysis and profiling technique. Pure essential oils are known to have very strong odor and there are several techniques used to differentiate the volatile odor generated. In this study, Electronic Nose (E-Nose) technology is used to distinguish the smell among 8 samples selected within the same Zingiberaceae family. Their pattern recognition profiles were examined by statistical analysis using Discriminant Factorial Analysis (DFA). The result shows that the E-Nose technology combined with DFA were successfully discriminating all 8 samples within the same family with significant p-values < 0.05 across all samples and 100% recognition value.