Product

s & Mat
erials

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
Identification of odour plays a significant Any perceived odour has several ele-
role in many situations. A new car should ments:
only smell like a new car and nothing
else. A bad odour in an apartment can • Intensity
make living there very uncomfortable. A • Quality (hedonic note)
puppet should have a smell different from • Acceptance
that of a computer.
These factors are not independent, as a
While these points may help to illustrate weak odour can have a hedonic impres-
the complexity of product odours, no sion and acceptance very different from
golden standard for assessing odour that of the same odour in strong intensity.
has so far been established, but some
attempts have been made to test the Eurofins can apply many different odour
quality and intensity of odours. tests of which the pro’s and con’s should
be compared before selection of a par-
Some odour testing protocols, described ticular test.
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

CLIMPAQ chamber for odour testing

 Testing the odour of consumer products
A number of testing methods
are available for assessment of
not sufficiently concentrated for
applying enough dilution stages.
Chemical analysis,
odours. odour threshold
Advanced chemical analysis may
Static test, identify many ingredients. These
Static test in glass Olfactometer concentrations are then com-
box A test piece, or test chamber air, pared with a database on odour
The test piece is placed in a is placed in a glass bottle. The thresholds, e.g. with the Danish
glass box, e.g. a desiccator, at odour strength is compared with VOCBASE. Also sniffing-GC may
37°C and defined humidity. Each several bottles containing stan- help identify the most prominent
of 3 to 8 odour panellists opens dard odour dilutions. Rating is odorous substances within a mix-
the box, assesses the odour, and intensity. This test is described in ture. These approaches will only
closes it again, typically after 24 French standard NF X 43-103. succeed if the dominating odours
hours storage. The scale has 3, can be detected with the applied
5 or 6 units between non-detect- analytical technique, which is not
able and unbearable. This test Olf and decipol always the case.
is used by GUT, Austrian UZ 56 A panel compares the chamber
outlet air, or other sources of
(carpets), Natureplus label, and
VDA 270. odour, with a standard odour, Electronic noses
which is again normalised to the Electronic noses based on sen-
average odour tone of one nor- sor techniques may allow odour
Dynamic test in mal person when diluted with 10 monitoring when the character
m³ fresh air per hour. of the odour remains the same.
CLIMPAC chamber However, identification of new
The test piece is placed in a odours is still very difficult to
glass test chamber of e.g. achieve with these techniques.
50 litres and flushed with
clean moistened air. Odour is
assessed at the outlet of the test Summary
chamber air by 5 or 15 panel- In comparison of the different
lists. Rating is acceptability (+1 approaches to odour testing,
to -1) and/or intensity (0 to 5). no single method was identi-
This test is used by Finnish M1 fied as ideal. In fact the simplest
label and by Danish Indoor Cli- technique (the static odour test
mate Label. in a glass box) showed a per-
formance similar to that of more
complicated techniques when
Dynamic test, applied to construction products.
Olfactometer The critical point is the subjective
Test chamber air is sampled in
gas bags and then presented to
Consumer element of odour testing. Dif-
ferent laboratories will produce
circa 15 odour panellists in dilu- perception different results as long as the
tion steps. The selection of the Trained or untrained consumers
odour panel is not calibrated.
panel is done each day such that are called into the laboratory for a
Selection of the panel, or com-
the panel will give the expected qualitative assessment of accept-
parison with standard odours,
response to a standard odour (n- ability and other sensory aspects
may help to improve reliability
butanol). Rating is odour found or of the tested product. This test
and comparability of odour test-
not found. Mathematical handling is mainly used for benchmarking
ing. Until progress is made on
of data leads to odour intensity, tests, comparing different prod-
this issue, odour testing of prod-
expressed as European Odour ucts with each other, or during
ucts remains a highly subjective
Units. This procedure was estab- development of new products.
test, valid mainly for comparative
lished for odour immission testing
testing, not always for absolute
outdoors as described in EN
odour assessment.
13725. In general, chamber air is

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