World J Microbiol Biotechnol (2015) 31:1845–1852

DOI 10.1007/s11274-015-1940-0

REVIEW

Recent advances in electronic nose techniques for monitoring

of fermentation process
Hui Jiang1 • Hang Zhang1 • Quansheng Chen2 • Congli Mei1 • Guohai Liu1

Received: 21 July 2015 / Accepted: 31 August 2015 / Published online: 4 September 2015
Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Abstract Microbial fermentation process is often sensi- also propose the technical challenges and future outlook for
tive to even slight changes of conditions that may result in the electronic nose techniques.
unacceptable end-product quality. Thus, the monitoring of
the process is critical for discovering unfavorable devia- Keywords Electronic nose
Sensor array

tions as early as possible and taking the appropriate mea- Fermentation
Odor
Process monitoring
sures. However, the use of traditional analytical techniques
is often time-consuming and labor-intensive. In this sense, Abbreviations
the most effective way of developing rapid, accurate and 2NM 2-Norm method
relatively economical method for quality assurance in ANN Artificial neural network
microbial fermentation process is the use of novel chemical ANOVA Analysis of variance
sensor systems. Electronic nose techniques have particular BPNN Back propagation neural networks
advantages in non-invasive monitoring of microbial fer- CA Cluster analysis
mentation process. Therefore, in this review, we present an DFA Discriminant factorial analysis
overview of the most important contributions dealing with GC Gas chromatography
the quality control in microbial fermentation process using GP Gaussian process
the electronic nose techniques. After a brief description of HCA Hierarchical cluster analysis
the fundamentals of the sensor techniques, some examples HPLC High-performance liquid chromatography
of potential applications of electronic nose techniques ICA Independent component analysis
monitoring are provided, including the implementation of IDCs Interdigitated chemocapacitors
control strategies and the combination with other moni- KNN K-Nearest neighbors
toring tools (i.e. sensor fusion). Finally, on the basis of the LDA Linear discriminant analysis
review, the electronic nose techniques are critically com- LSD Fisher’s least significant difference
mented, and its strengths and weaknesses being high- MDM Mahalanobis distance method
lighted. In addition, on the basis of the observed trends, we MIRS Mid infrared spectroscopy
MLR Multiple linear regression
MOS Semiconducting metal-oxide sensors
MLR Multiple linear regressions
& Hui Jiang MOSFET Metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect
h.v.jiang@hotmail.com; h.v.jiang@ujs.edu.cn
transistors
& Quansheng Chen NIRS Near-infrared spectroscopy
q.s.chen@hotmail.com
OCP Organic conducting polymer
1
School of Electrical and Information Engineering, Jiangsu PCA Principal component analysis
University, Zhenjiang 212013, People’s Republic of China PCR Principal component regression
2
School of Food and Biological Engineering, Jiangsu PCs Principal components
University, Zhenjiang 212013, People’s Republic of China PLS Partial least squares

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QCM Quartz crystal microbalance
QMBs Quartz microbalances
SAW Surface acoustic wave
SmF Submerged fermentation
SOM Self-organizing map
SSF Solid state fermentation
SVM Support vector machine
TDNNs Time-delay neural networks
VOCs Volatile organic compounds
Introduction
Microbial fermentation is a biomolecule manufacturing
process which is widely used in the food, pharmaceutical,
fuel and textile industries. These biomolecules are mostly
metabolites generated by the bulk growth of microorgan-
isms on a growth medium, often with the goal of producing
a specific chemical product useful to humans. In order to
reduce stuck and sluggish fermentation, as well as to ensure
the quality and productivity of fermentation products at all
stages of the microbial fermentation process, effective
process monitoring, which can rapidly provide real time
information, is important due to the rapid pace of devel-
opment in the fermentation industry (Wang et al. 2014).
However, only several process parameters (pH, tem-
perature, dissolved oxygen, etc.) can be easily measured
in situ during submerged fermentation (SmF) (Peris and
Escuder-Gilabert 2013). In the process of solid state fer-
mentation (SSF), only the temperature can be real-time
detected and controlled due to the lack of free water (Jiang
et al. 2012a). Thus, more information (biomass concen-
tration, substrate concentration, etc.) required for the pro-
cess control and decision of fermentation is often based on
data produced by offline sampling analysis. Usually, the
analysis of these parameters by use of traditional methods
requires sample preparation and specific analytical equip-
ment (such as high-performance liquid chromatography,
HPLC; and gas chromatography, GC.) and is time-con-
suming and labor-intensive (Cozzolino and Curtin 2012).
Therefore, the real-time monitoring and control approaches
or techniques of microbial fermentation processes are
essentially required to assure the quality and consistency of
the target product.
In recent years, electronic nose techniques have become
valuable tools in all major areas of application, particularly
due to recent technological developments in sensor tech-
nology and the computing power of computer hardware.
Generally, the electronic nose system is attractive for a
number of significant features, such as the relatively fast
assessment of headspace, a quantitative representation or
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World J Microbiol Biotechnol (2015) 31:1845–1852
qualitative identification of a gas and cheap chemical
sensors which can be easily integrated in current produc-
tion processes, thus becoming particularly suitable for the
continuous monitoring of microbial fermentation process.
In our work, major contributions of electronic nose appli-
cations in the monitoring of microbial fermentation pro-
cesses will be commented.
Previous research reviews, complementary to the scope
of this review, have been conducted related comments in
some specific field of fermentation. Rudnitskaya and Legin
(2008) summarized recent achievements in the research,
development and applications of electronic tongues and
noses to the monitoring of biofuel production processes.
Peris and Escuder-Gilabert (2013) reviewed two new
analytical techniques, including electronic nose technique
and their applications for monitoring of food fermentation
processes. Herein, we review in detail the trends in the
application of electronic nose techniques for monitoring of
microbial fermentation processes, covering SmF and SSF.
We also present the technical challenges and future outlook
for the electronic nose techniques.
Electronic nose techniques
The term ‘‘electronic nose’’ refers to the capability of
reproducing human senses using sensor arrays and pattern
recognition systems. That is, an electronic nose is a device
which is often associated with the detection of odors or
flavors. During 1980s, research has been conducted to
develop electronic nose equipment, which could ‘‘smell’’
odors and flavors of organic material. The recognition
process is similar to human olfaction and is performed for
identification, comparison and quantification, including
data storage and retrieval (Persaud and Dodd 1982). Over
the last decade, the electronic nose techniques have
undergone important developments from a technical and
commercial point of view and are now used to fulfill
industrial needs.
The electronic nose device was developed in order to
crudely mimic human olfaction that functions as an inter-
active mechanism (Baldwin et al. 2011). Generally, the
electronic nose systems include three major parts: a sample
delivery system, a detection system and a computing sys-
tem. The sample delivery system enables the generation of
the headspace (volatile organic compounds, VOCs) of a
sample. The system then injects this headspace into the
detection system of the electronic nose. The sample
delivery system is essential to guarantee constant operating
conditions. The detection system, which consists of a
sensor array, is the ‘‘reactive’’ part of the instrument. When
in contact with VOCs, the sensors react, which means they
experience a change of electrical properties. The
World J Microbiol Biotechnol (2015) 31:1845–1852
computing system is used for data recording, then to gen-
erate signal pattern that are used for characterizing odors
based on chemometrics methods. Figure 1 shows a sche-
matic diagram of measurements and gas flow of the elec-
tronic nose system.
In most electronic nose, the sensor array often consists
of non-selective sensors that interact with volatile mole-
cules, that is to say, each sensor of the sensor array is
sensitive to all volatile molecules but each in their specific
way. In sensor array react to volatile molecules, the
adsorption of volatile compounds on the sensor surface
causes a physical change of the sensor. The non-selectivity
of the sensors results in many possibilities for unique signal
combinations, patterns or fingerprints. The more commonly
used sensors for electronic nose system include metal-ox-
ide semiconductor (MOS), metal-oxide semiconductor
field-effect transistors (MOSFET), organic conducting
polymer (OCP), quartz crystal microbalance (QCM),
quartz microbalances (QMBs), surface acoustic wave
(SAW), interdigitated chemocapacitors (IDCs), etc. (Roeck
et al. 2008; Oh et al. 2011). Today, several commercial
electronic nose devices have emerged in the market. These
instruments are often promoted as generic devices and
suitable for a range of applications.
Fermentation monitoring
In recent years, some successful applications of electronic
nose techniques to monitoring of microbial fermentation
processes have been published. Generally speaking, the
applications of electronic nose techniques in fermentation
monitoring found in literature can be classified into two
main categories: SmF (Sect. ‘‘Submerged fermentation’’)
and SSF (Sect. ‘‘Solid state fermentation’’). All the
Fig. 1 The schematic diagram
of measurements and gas flow
of electronic nose system Personal computer
Ambient air
Vacuum pump
1847
relevant applications involve laboratory and industrial field
research, with some other non-invasive tool coupled to
electronic nose techniques for monitoring of microbial
fermentation processes, as discussed in the following sec-
tions. The major contributions of electronic nose tech-
niques relevant to the most research works in the
fermentation monitoring fields are summarized in Table 1.
For each reference, we listed the fermentation product and
the main study purposes that are presented in the Table 1.
Submerged fermentation
Submerged fermentation (SmF) has been defined as fer-
mentation in the presence of excess water. In the modem
industrial manufacturing, almost all the large-scale enzyme
producing facilities are using the proven technology of
SmF due to better monitoring and ease of handling
(Singhania et al. 2010). Since 2000, electronic nose tech-
niques as a promising tool have been applied to on-line
and/or off-line monitoring of SmF processes. The main
application of electronic nose with respect of SmF is
qualitative and quantitative analysis by using fingerprints
obtained of odor, such as parameters detection and state
monitoring.
Bachinger et al. (2001) evaluated the use of a chemical
gas sensor array for monitoring the metabolic burden. The
authors found that selected gas sensors responded in a
substantially different way to microbial cells which are
subjected to a high metabolic burden, and cells which are
not. The study indicated that the gas sensors technique
could be further developed and provides a promising tool
for monitoring bioprocesses and improving recombinant
expression control.
Pinheiro et al. (2002) investigated the monitoring of the
evolution of the muscatel wine-must fermentation using the
Sensor array
Solenoid
valve-3 (V3)
Solenoid Solenoid
valve-1 (V1) valve-2 (V2)
Tail-gas
Sample vessel treatment unit
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Table 1 Summary of the applications of electronic nose techniques in monitoring of fermentation process
Fermentation Application Type of study Sensors Data Off- On- References
processing line line
algorithm

Submerged Heterologous Detection of the metabolic burden on 10 MOSFET, Corrcoef H Bachinger et al.
fermentation protein recombinant microorganisms 19 MOS (2001)
fermentation
Wine-must Monitoring of muscatel aroma profile 32 OCP (A32S PCA H H Pinheiro et al.
fermentation during the wine-must fermentation AromaScan)a (2002)
Wine-must Detect the evolution of aroma profile 10 MOS PCA H Buratti et al.
fermentation (PEN2)d (2011)
Red wine Prediction of alcohol concentration 12 MOS PCR, PLS H Zhang et al.
fermentation (FOX-3000)b (2012)
Yoghurt Prediction of galactose, lactose, lactate, 10 MOSFET, PCA, ANN H Cimander et al.
fermentation pH and the process state of the yoghurt 19 MOS (2002)
culture
Yogurt and filmjölk Visualizing the fermentation state by 10 MOSFET, PCA, PLS H Navrátil et al.
fermentation generating process trajectory 19 MOS (2004)
Tokaj wine Wine fermentation control by gas sensor 6 MOS PCA, MLR H Maciejewska
fermentation array et al. (2006)
Milk fermentation Classify different strains 12 MOS ANOVA, PCA H Gutiérrez-
(FOX-3000)b Méndez et al.
(2008)
Alcoholic Identify differences between the two 18 MOS (FOX PCA, DFA, H Calderon-
fermentation strains 4000)c LDA Santoyo et al.
(2010)
Lactic fermentation Monitor some parameters (FOX 4000)c PCA H Calderon-
Santoyo et al.
(2013)
Partially Discrimination between fermented and 8 QMBs PCA H Garcı́a-Martı́nez
fermentation of unfermented musts et al. (2011)
sweet wines
Vinegar Differentiate different vinegar samples 1 SAW PCA H Lee et al. (2012)
fermentation (zNose)e
Acidithiobacillus Identify each day of reactor evolution 11 MOS PCA, CA H Rosi et al. (2012)
thiooxidans
fermentation
Alcoholic Discriminate between a normal and a 8 IDCs PCA H Oikonomou et al.
fermentation potential spoiled fermentation process (2014)
Solid state Black tea Detection of optimum fermentation time 8 MOS PCA, 2NM, H Bhattacharyya
fermentation MDM, et al. (2007b, a,
TDNN, SOM 2008)
Black tea Detection of optimum fermentation time 8 QCM PCA H Sharma et al.
(2015)
Anaerobic digestion Detection of organic overload in 6 MOS ANOVA, LSD, H Adam et al.
anaerobic digestion domain PCA (2013)
Protein feed Identification of fermentation state 11 MOS PCA, LDA, H Jiang et al. (2014)
KNN, SVM
Protein feed Identification of fermentation state 11 MOS PCA, GP, SVM, H Mei et al. (2014,
BPNN 2015)
Protein feed Monitor the critical time of fermentation 11 MOS PCA, ICA, H Jiang and Chen
process BP_AdaBoost (2014)

For details see the abbreviations section

a
A32S AromaScan is an organic conducting polymer (OCP) commercially available electronic nose from Osmetech plc, UK
b
FOX 3000 is a metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) commercially available electronic nose from AlphaMOS, France
c
FOX 4000 is a metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) commercially available electronic nose from AlphaMOS, France
d
PEN2 is a metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) commercially portable electronic nose from WMA, Germany
e
zNose is a surface acoustic wave (SAW) commercially available electronic nose from Electronic Sensor Technology, USA

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electronic nose. In this work, a commercially available
electronic nose was used to collect data. Data analysis was
carried out by principal component analysis (PCA). The
results achieved of the study demonstrated that the elec-
tronic nose could only perceive the evolution of the ethanol
during the fermentation without any sample pretreatment.
In 2011, Buratti et al. (2011) applied NIRS and mid
infrared spectroscopy (MIRS), electronic nose and elec-
tronic tongue to monitor wine-must fermentation. In their
work, the electronic nose was particularly used to follow
the evolution of the aroma profile during the fermentation
process. The work demonstrated the possibility to employ
the electronic nose was shown in order to describe the
evolution of aroma profile during must-wine fermentation.
Moreover, the kinetic modeling of different techniques data
shows that these non-destructive approaches were suitable
to follow the fermentation process giving crucial infor-
mation about the quality of the final product. Thus, these
devices were able to provide real time information for
monitoring of the fermentation process from a chemical
and sensorial point of view. Besides, in red wine fermen-
tation, Zhang et al. (2012) predicted the alcohol content
during the red wine alcoholic fermentation by near-infrared
spectroscopy (NIRS) and electronic nose techniques. The
results demonstrated that both NIRS and electronic nose
could predict the alcohol concentration during the alcoholic
fermentation of red wine, and the combination of two
instruments could improve the analysis precision.
Cimander et al. (2002) verified the use of sensor fusion
(including standard bioreactor probes; NIRS and electronic
nose) techniques to efficiently monitor the lab-scale
yoghurt fermentation. The signals obtained were fused by a
cascade neural network. Although the accuracy of the
neural network prediction was acceptable and comparable
with the off-line reference assay, its stability and perfor-
mance were significantly improved by correction of faulty
data. The results demonstrated that the sensor fusion could
improve monitoring and quality control of yoghurt fer-
mentation with implications to other fermentation pro-
cesses. In a similar study, Navrátil et al. (2004) applied the
multi-sensor system to real-time production monitoring in
a dairy under industrial conditions. The features of NIRS
and electronic nose signals were extracted by using PCA.
The results of the study showed that the first principal
components (PCs) of the multi-sensor data could be used
for on-line generation of a process trajectory plot visual-
izing the actual state of fermentation, and the fusion of the
multi-sensor signals had a potential for rapid monitoring
and assessment of process quality of yogurt fermentation.
Maciejewska et al. (2006) studied the process control of
Tokaj wine fermentation by using an array of partially
selective gas sensor. The gas sensor responses were pro-
cessed by PCA, and the first PC1 was extracted as a process
1849
control variable. The multiple linear regression models
were developed using the PC1 extracted for prediction of
the alcohol content, organic acids and ethyl acetate con-
centration in fermenting medium. However, these param-
eters indicated the progress of fermentation process as well
as the sensory quality of final wine, and the PC1 very well
correlated with human sensory assessment of the intensity
of odour and flavour of fermenting medium. The results
obtained of the work indicated the potential of gas sensor
array to provide an alternative to human operator control of
wine fermentation control.
Gutiérrez-Méndez et al. (2008) presented a study to
capture the aroma generation of Lactococcus lactis strains
isolated from different sources by an electronic nose and
sensory evaluation for their potential use in starter cheese
cultures. Twenty-three strains of L. lactis were isolated
from dairy sources, and all the strains were assessed for
their ability to produce aromas by the electronic nose and
sensory analysis after their incubation in milk. The elec-
tronic nose data were processed by using PCA, and a clear
difference of four sample groups based on their odor
intensity scores (yogurt-like and Fresco cheese-like).
Calderon-Santoyo et al. (2010) investigated the no-line
monitoring of alcoholic fermentation with an electronic
nose coupled to gas chromatography. The alcoholic fer-
mentations were conducted by Saccharomyces cerevisiae
ICV-K1 and S. cerevisiae T306, and the two strains were
widely applied in oenology. The differences between the
two strains were identified using discriminant factorial
analysis (DFA) with PCA based on the electronic nose
responses. The work showed that the electronic nose was
both a descriptive and predictive tool for the fermentation
monitoring. Afterwards, the research group used the same
system to monitor some parameters during the lactic fer-
mentation process as ethanol, lactate and biomass con-
centration (Calderon-Santoyo et al. 2013).
Garcı́a-Martı́nez et al. (2011) employed an electronic
nose in combination with GC, to capture changes in fer-
mentation processes effected by osmo-ethanol-tolerant
S. cerevisiae strains (strains X4 and X5) added to musts
from off-vine dried Pedro Ximenez grapes. The fermented
and unfermented musts could be classified using the elec-
tronic nose data with the help of a PCA.
Lee et al. (2012) investigated the effects of different
nuruk contents and fermentation methods on organic acids
and volatile compounds in brown rice vinegars. The elec-
tronic nose was applied to identify the samples obtained
from different fermentation conditions. The results of the
study showed the electronic nose analysis had its potential
superiority to effective differentiate different samples.
Rosi et al. (2012) designed a special electronic nose for on-
line monitoring of released vapors during Acidithiobacillus
thiooxidans grown under aerobic conditions. The sensor array,
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which was made of eleven MOS gas sensors, was placed at the
top of the bioreactor sensing the headspace in equilibrium with
the evolving liquor at any time without the need of aspiration
and pumping of gases into a separated sensor chamber. The
results showed that the specially designed electronic nose was
capable to differentiate each day of reactor evolution since
inoculation within periods marked off culture medium
replacements using multivariate data analysis.
Oikonomou et al. (2014) presented a study on moni-
toring and evaluation of alcoholic fermentation of Sava-
tiano must with the use of a gas sensor array composed by
eight IDCs under laboratory conditions. Two batches of
fermentation must were tested and also subjected to cor-
responding standard chemical analysis. According to the
chemical analysis, two musts with distinctly different fer-
menting characteristics were monitored using the gas sen-
sor array. Sensor array responses to the fermentation must
samples were compared with those obtained either for pure
or contaminated samples with controlled concentrations of
standard ethanol solutions of impurities. The results indi-
cated that the sensor system could classify between a
normal and a potential spoiled grape must fermentation
process. Therefore, the gas sensor system could be used for
control and evaluation of the wine fermentation procedure.
Solid state fermentation
Solid state fermentation (SSF) is defined as the fermenta-
tion in absence or near absence of free water; in such
systems, water is present in a solid substrate whose
capacity for liquid retention varies with the type of material
(Jiang et al. 2012a, b). However, with the lack of biological
sensors, there are no effective measurement methods for
key parameter (such as biomass) in SSF. The off-line
measurements are usually time-consuming and labor-in-
tensive, and this strategy is not effective for real-time
monitoring and control of SSF. In recent years, with the
development of chemical sensor technology, although
electronic nose techniques have also been applied in SSF
domain, studies found in literature only focused on quali-
tative analysis.
Bhattacharyya et al. (2007a, b, 2008) presented a
research on aroma monitoring of black tea during the fer-
mentation processes by use of an electronic nose system as
well as determination of the correct fermentation time. In
the work, five different time-delay neural networks
(TDNN) and self-organizing map (SOM) algorithms were
used to develop models for identification of different smell
stages during the fermentation runs of black tea processing.
The results demonstrated that most of the electronic nose
readings accurately matched with the colorimetric as well
as human panel data. Additionally, in monitoring of black
tea fermentation, Sharma et al. (2015) presented a
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methodology to detect the optimum fermentation time of
black tea using an electronic nose consisting of eight QCM
sensors. The results showed good agreement with the
estimations of the ultra-violet-visible (UV) spectropho-
tometer based reference method. Though their research, it
could be concluded that the electronic nose technique could
be used to monitor the volatile emission pattern for black
tea fermentation process with a very high degree of accu-
racy, reliability and repeatability. Such objective method-
ology might be instrumental in manufacturing consistent
quality of black tea.
Adam et al. (2013) investigated the utilization of an
electronic nose to monitor anaerobic digestion process,
especially for detecting organic overload of the reactors.
An array of non-specific MOS gas sensors were used for
process fault diagnosis due to organic overload events
existing in several anaerobic semi-continuous reactors.
Two monitoring campaigns were conducted according to
three different load strategies, and the two groups of data
were recorded. Then, Hotelling’s T2 value and upper con-
trol limit to a reference set of digesters fed with a cautious
organic loading rate was used as indirect state variable of
the reactors. Overload situations could be identified by the
electronic nose with Hotelling’s T2 values at least four
times higher in magnitude than the upper control limit of
23.7. The results of the study demonstrated that the elec-
tronic nose was a promising tool for on-line monitoring of
process imbalances in the domain of anaerobic digestion.
Jiang et al. (2014) evaluated the use of electronic nose
technique for monitoring of the fermentation process of
SSF of feed protein. Different linear and nonlinear methods
(i.e. linear discriminant analysis, LDA; K-nearest neigh-
bors, KNN; and support vector machine, SVM.) were
respectively used to calibrate identification models for
monitoring of varying stages of fermentation. The results
of the paper showed that the electronic nose technique
combined with an appropriate chemometric approach could
be successfully used in monitoring of SSF process.
Recently, two similar researches were reported by Mei
et al. (2014, 2015), which form the same research team.
The results obtained of the research revealed that the GP is
a promising method for identify fermentation state of SSF
of protein feed. Additionally, in their further study (Jiang
and Chen 2014), electronic nose coupled to NIRS tech-
niques were employed to monitor the critical moment in
the SSF process of protein feed. The results of the work
demonstrated a good ability of electronic nose and NIRS
techniques to follow the fermentation process giving cru-
cial information about the state of the SSF process of feed
protein. Compared with the single technology model, the
modeling of fusion data showed that the combination of
these non-destructive tools could significantly improve
identification performance of the process state of SSF of
World J Microbiol Biotechnol (2015) 31:1845–1852
feed protein. Therefore, it could be concluded that these
devices can be regarded as valid and simple instruments,
able to provide real-time signals during SSF in order to
monitor the development of the process from different
perspectives.
Conclusions and future trends
In this paper, applications of electronic nose techniques to
the monitoring of microbial fermentation processes are
reviewed. The technology has great potential for detection
of complex mixtures of liquid, gas and solid, due to its
some particular advantages over conventional analytical
techniques such as rapidity, simplicity and relatively
inexpensive, and the fact of being non-invasive analytical
techniques thus can efficiently and continuously control at
all stage of a fermentation process. The general trend
seems to point toward the use of the electronic nose tech-
niques to optimize production cost-effectiveness and pro-
duct quality in fermentation industries.
As can be seen from Table 1, firstly, the electronic nose
techniques have become a valuable tool for detection of
microbial fermentation processes in recent years. In par-
ticular, with the development of computer, material and
sensor technology, the methodology of monitoring the
released gases by placing gas sensor array as an integrated
part of a bioreactor avoiding aspiration of the vapors to an
external chamber had been reported in some studies and
can implement the early on-line detection of bioreactors
departure from normal working operation, thus allowing
fast decision-making. Secondly, the electronic nose tech-
niques were applied to monitor the processes of SSF have
also got great development in recent 5 years, however,
most of the researches in SSF are still limited in off-line
analysis of laboratory.
Although all results presented in this review seem to be
very interesting and promising, there are still very few
applications of electronic nose techniques adopted in
industrial production. This could be attributed to difficul-
ties in selectivity, reproducibility and robustness of the
current sensor technology. Therefore, we should further
strengthen understanding of the biological mechanisms
behind the human olfactory system. Specifically, we future
should have a profound understanding not only of the
genetics behind the human olfactory receptors but also of
the relationships between the property of an odor molecule
and the quality of the odor, and then better simulate human
olfactory system by designing and developing more tar-
geted gas sensor.
On the other hand, given that the mass of data obtained
by the electronic nose systems is complex and irrelevant
for monitoring of microbial fermentation processes, thus,
1851
selecting and designing an efficient, practical machine
learning algorithm is a precondition for successful appli-
cation of the electronic nose systems in on-line monitoring
of microbial fermentation processes, and can also accel-
erate processing speed to meet modern manufacturing
requirements. In brief, developing high-performance, low-
cost electronic nose equipment will be a trend to its future
practical application for on-line monitoring of microbial
fermentation process in industrial production field.
Acknowledgments The authors gratefully acknowledge the finan-
cial support provided by the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu
Province (Youth) (Grant No. BK20140538), the China Postdoctoral
Science Foundation (Grant No. 2014M550273), and the Advanced
Talents Science Foundation of Jiangsu University (Grant No.
13JDG094). We also wish to thank many of our colleagues for many
stimulating discussions in this field.
Compliance with ethics standards
Conflict of interest All authors declare that they have no conflict of
interest.
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