American researchers have published the first results of a study they are carrying out to be able to predict an odor based on its chemical structure. At the moment they show us a classification of ten basic smells.
| Photograph by publicdomainpictures |
¿How many smells can we define?,
they can be uncountable, but a basic classification is necessary just as there is for other sensory modalities, such as taste. It would be a very useful tool for professionals in food and beverages, botany, cosmetics, hygiene, etc.
Well, this is what researchers Jason B. Castro (Bates University, USA), Arvind Ramanathan and Chakra Chennubhotla (University of Pittsburgh, USA) have tried to do. Of course, they are not the first to do so, so their classification of ten basic odors it does not have to be accepted.
Many odor classifications have been proposed, but so far none have been widely accepted, there are some databases (not many publicly available), but they are only a representation of odor perception. The authors of the so-called ‘new atlas of odors’ have used the work of Amdrew Dravnieks as a database’Atlas of odor character profiles‘, published in 1985.
The complete study was published a couple of days ago in Plos One, the researchers explain that to classify odors into ten minimum categories in which odors can be described, they have used the Non-Negative Matrix Factorization technique, which consists of the decomposition of a matrix whose elements are non-negative into the product of two non-negative matrices.
The database is based on 146 olfactory descriptors that have served to arrive at at least ten basic and approximate olfactory perceptions, through mathematics and statistics, the categories of odors described are:
Floral fragrance, woody or resinous, fruity (not citrus), citrus, chemical smell, minty or refreshing, sweet, burnt or smoky, and two types of nauseating stench: decomposed and rancid.
There is still a lot of work ahead, the authors of the research know that an odor cannot yet be predicted based on its chemical structure, but they hope to achieve it. They also declare that with these ten categories one can begin to build odors, also knowing that characteristics that the individual perceives are reflected, such as whether it is a food, something dangerous, etc.
If you are interested in the subject, we recommend reading another research published in 2006 in Chemical Senses, which was directed by Manuel Zarzo, professor at the Polytechnic University of Valencia.