(213f) Development of a Colorimetric Sensing Technology for Rapid Volatile Sulfur CompoundClassification

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are naturally occurring components found in various fruits and vegetables. For vegetables, VOCs are closely associated with their quality attributes, such as firmness, soluble sugars, flavonols, and translucency. For instance, eye irritation and pungent odors are commonly experienced when cutting onions, caused by a number of volatile sulfur compounds and aldehydes present in them. The current standard methods, such as GC-MS, PTR-MS, are inadequate for detecting these volatiles as VOCs are short-lived and invasive sampling is required. To address this issue, we developed a paper-based colorimetric VOC sensor to detect major sulfur VOCs (i.e., sulfoxides, sulfides, mercaptans, thiophenes) without bulky equipment. Our results showed that the colorimetric sensors successfully detected and classified different VOCs, which can be used to distinguish several onion varieties with high classification accuracy. These findings are promising and offer a potential alternative to the current standard method for detecting vegetable VOCs for rapid quality assessment in the field.