HERACLES Neo,Flash gas chromatography electronic nose

HERACLES Neo is dedicated to the analysis of your products’ aroma as well as chemical molecules composing the smell, with AroChemBase option. Thanks to its numerous applications, its high precision and ease of use, control the sensory profile of your products to better satisfy your customers.

Unique benefits of HERACLES Neo electronic nose

Using an electronic nose instrument for the sensory analysis of smell allows our customers to:

• Make sensory evaluation more reliable during food testing within their company
• Improve sensory quality of their production and assure its consistency over time
• Standardize the aroma quality of products among production sites on a global scale
• Control the sensory characteristics of their products
• Investigate customers claims linked to smell to decrease financial loss
• Significantly decrease production loss thanks to an earlier detection and better reactivity on olfactory defects
• Speed up liberating tests on production batches.

HERACLES Neo : unsurpassed technical performance

HERACLES Neo uses flash gas chromatography technology and unique technical characteristics, to provide unsurpassed performance in assessing the chemical composition and related sensory attributes:

• Evaluation of smell fingerprint: the chromatography data processing software with multivariate statistics is on of the specificities of the electronic nose, that allows to assess an smell globally, as perceived by the sensory panel
• Possibility to identify the chemical compounds composing the smell and quantitative analysis: the interest of a separative technique such as gas chromatography lies in the ability to qualify the chemical molecules involved and to quantify odours compounds.
• Objectivity of the measurement for odour analysis: using an instrument like the electronic nose for analyzing smell guarantees repeatable, reproducible and totally objective results compared with the human perception of odours
• High stability of measurement in the long-term: the electronic nose allows to assure the consistency of sensory quality over time by avoiding any potential drift that could come from the sensory evaluation tool
• High sensitivity of detection of odorous compounds and VOCs: gas chromatography technology with built-in pre-concentration trap allows to reach very low detection thresholds on odorous molecules with HERACLES Neo electronic nose
• Rapidity and high analysis throughput: HERACLES Neo electronic nose, based on flash gas chromatography and coupled with an autosampler, allows to analyze up to 200 samples a day with a constant reliability of measurement.

Thanks to a great ease of sample preparation and a high reliability of smell measurements, HERACLES Neo electronic nose can thus substitute to a sensory panel for some routine tests that can be difficult or that can raise safety issues linked with the presence of compounds such as alcohols, solvents or volatile compounds in plastics.

AlphaSoft,Sensory Analysis Software

AlphaSoft software operates all Alpha MOS instruments:

• HERACLES electronic nose
• ASTREE electronic tongue
• IRIS electronic eye.

It allows to monitor instruments settings, define analysis methods and sequences, run analysis and perform data acquisition.

It also achieves the data processing of Alpha MOS instruments measurements, using different models based on the application:

• Qualitative models: comparison of several samples on overall odor/taste/visual aspect, samples classification based on a criterion, quality/conformity control, shelf life monitoring
• Quantitative models: prediction of measurable parameters such as a concentration or a sensory attribute intensity.

Data processing modules (statistics packages, AroChemBase) can also be used to compute data from other analytical instruments.

AlphaSoft anticipates maintenance needs and avoids losing time on lab activity.

Thanks to this unique software platform, it is possible to combine HERACLES, ASTREE and IRIS results to have an overall point of view of products sensory features.