The rationale which has driven the current human-sensor bias for environmental odor monitoring has been the broad acceptance the key misperception that odor response is inherently complex and no instrumental approach can rise to this complexity. In reality many and possibly most, real-world odor sources can be identified through an instrumental approach regardless of whether the responsible odor source is of natural or synthetic origin. Typically odor impact, whether positive or negative, is driven by very small subsets of odorous chemicals from otherwise large and complex total source emission fields. For example, the aroma and flavor of the common red beet is primarily traceable to a miniscule concentration of a single odorous chemical called geosmin. When presented with a trace amount of pure geosmin, individuals familiar with the aroma and flavor of beets will typically make this association, immediately and without prompting.
There is no one strategy which is universally ideal for ‘ODOR’ neutralization. In some cases an appropriate combination of technologies may be indicated to neutralize the total, character-impact odorant sub-set. As a result of these factors, development of strategies which are based solely on composite sensory data from human sensory panels is likely to proceed by ‘trial and error’; a strategy of extreme potential inefficiency. In comparison, remediation strategy development which is based upon detailed (and correct) knowledge of chemical odorant impact priority carries the potential for dramatically increased efficiency. Hand-in-hand with the latter is the potential for significant cost reduction resulting from increased efficiency of investigation. One of the methods covered is MDGC-MS-Olfactometry (multidimensional gas chromatography–mass spectrometry olfactometry) a technique developed by the author which can be used to identify a odorant within days, hours, minutes or, occasionally seconds of being presented with the reference samples. With this method the book allows readers recognize that there is a feasible, chemically-based method to identifying and mitigating odors.
