Odour Emission Testing - En
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P r o d u c t s & M a t e r i a l s Testing odours of consumer products An odour may be pleasant or unpleasant, weak or strong, and individual persons may have very different perceptions of the same odour Identication of odour plays a signicant role in many situations. A new car should only smell like a new car and nothing else. A bad odour in an apartment can make living there very uncomfortab le. A puppet should have a smell different from that of a computer. While these points may help to illustrate the complexity of product odours, no golden standard for assessing odour has so far been established, but some attempts have been made to test the quality and intensity of odours. Some odour testing protocols, described overleaf, have been established for dif- ferent purposes. These methods are in use for: • Product design and production control • Indoor air related quality labels • Prediction of consumer perception of a product Any perceived odour has several ele- ments: • Intensity • Quality (hedonic note) • Acceptance These factors are not independent, as a weak odour can have a hedonic impres- sion and acceptance very different from that of the same odour in strong intensity. Eurons can apply many different odour tests of which the pro’s and con’s should be compared before selection of a par- ticular test. CLIMPAQ chamber for odour testing
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P r o d u c t s & Ma t e r i a l s
Testing odours of consumer products
An odour may be pleasant or unpleasant, weakor strong, and individual persons may have verydifferent perceptions of the same odour
Identi cation of odour plays a signi cantrole in many situations. A new car shouldonly smell like a new car and nothingelse. A bad odour in an apartment canmake living there very uncomfortable. Apuppet should have a smell different fromthat of a computer.
While these points may help to illustratethe complexity of product odours, nogolden standard for assessing odour has so far been established, but some
attempts have been made to test thequality and intensity of odours.
Some odour testing protocols, describedoverleaf, have been established for dif-ferent purposes.
These methods are in use for:
• Product design and production control• Indoor air related quality labels• Prediction of consumer perception of
a product
Any perceived odour has several ele-ments:
• Intensity• Quality (hedonic note)• Acceptance
These factors are not independent, as aweak odour can have a hedonic impres-sion and acceptance very different fromthat of the same odour in strong intensity.
Euro ns can apply many different odour tests of which the pro’s and con’s shouldbe compared before selection of a par-ticular test.
CLIMPAQ chamber for odour testing
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DenmarkProductTesting-DK@euro ns.com+45 70 22 42 76
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A number of testing methodsare available for assessment of odours.
Static test in glassboxThe test piece is placed in aglass box, e.g. a desiccator, at37°C and de ned humidity. Eachof 3 to 8 odour panellists opensthe box, assesses the odour, andcloses it again, typically after 24hours storage. The scale has 3,5 or 6 units between non-detect-able and unbearable. This testis used by GUT, Austrian UZ 56(carpets), Natureplus label, andVDA 270.
Dynamic test inCLIMPAC chamber The test piece is placed in aglass test chamber of e.g.50 litres and ushed withclean moistened air. Odour isassessed at the outlet of the testchamber air by 5 or 15 panel-lists. Rating is acceptability (+1to -1) and/or intensity (0 to 5).This test is used by Finnish M1label and by Danish Indoor Cli -mate Label.
Dynamic test,Olfactometer Test chamber air is sampled ingas bags and then presented tocirca 15 odour panellists in dilu-tion steps. The selection of thepanel is done each day such thatthe panel will give the expectedresponse to a standard odour (n-butanol). Rating is odour found or not found. Mathematical handlingof data leads to odour intensity,expressed as European Odour Units. This procedure was estab -lished for odour immission testingoutdoors as described in EN13725. In general, chamber air is
not suf ciently concentrated for applying enough dilution stages.
Static test,
Olfactometer A test piece, or test chamber air,is placed in a glass bottle. Theodour strength is compared withseveral bottles containing stan-dard odour dilutions. Rating isintensity. This test is described inFrench standard NF X 43-103.
Olf and decipolA panel compares the chamber outlet air, or other sources of
odour, with a standard odour,which is again normalised to theaverage odour tone of one nor-mal person when diluted with 10m³ fresh air per hour.
Consumer perceptionTrained or untrained consumersare called into the laboratory for aqualitative assessment of accept-ability and other sensory aspectsof the tested product. This testis mainly used for benchmarkingtests, comparing different prod-ucts with each other, or duringdevelopment of new products.
Chemical analysis,odour thresholdAdvanced chemical analysis mayidentify many ingredients. These
concentrations are then com-pared with a database on odour thresholds, e.g. with the DanishVOCBASE. Also snif ng-GC mayhelp identify the most prominentodorous substances within a mix-ture. These approaches will onlysucceed if the dominating odourscan be detected with the appliedanalytical technique, which is notalways the case.
Electronic nosesElectronic noses based on sen-sor techniques may allow odour monitoring when the character of the odour remains the same.However, identi cation of newodours is still very dif cult toachieve with these techniques.
SummaryIn comparison of the differentapproaches to odour testing,
no single method was identi-ed as ideal. In fact the simplest
technique (the static odour testin a glass box) showed a per -formance similar to that of morecomplicated techniques whenapplied to construction products.
The critical point is the subjectiveelement of odour testing. Dif -ferent laboratories will producedifferent results as long as the
odour panel is not calibrated.Selection of the panel, or com-parison with standard odours,may help to improve reliabilityand comparability of odour test-ing. Until progress is made onthis issue, odour testing of prod-ucts remains a highly subjectivetest, valid mainly for comparativetesting, not always for absoluteodour assessment.
Testing the odour of consumer products
