Feed Analysis and Animal Nutrition : Electronic Nose as a Diagnostic Tool

The electronic nose is an instrument that comprises an array of electronic chemical sensors and an appropriate pattern recognition system and capable of recognizing simple or complex volatile organic compounds’ (VOCs) profiles associated to a product odour. The e-nose analysis of VOCs is of increasing interest as an analytical tool in many research areas, such as agricultural, food, pharmaceutical, biomedical, cosmetics, environmental, food, manufacturing, military. In the food industry, the electronic nose could represent a rapid and reliable tool for quality and safety assessment, freshness and shelf-life evaluation, authenticity assessment, foodstuff recognition, and process monitoring. This paper provides an overview of the applications of electronic nose in feed analysis and animal nutrition. Focus is placed on the applications as an analytical tool for quality control and management in the cereal and pet food industry. Further, this paper provides a critical outlook on the developments needed for transitioning of electronic nose use from research to industrial application in real contexts.