Growth Prediction of the Total Bacterial Count in Freshly Squeezed Strawberry Juice during Cold Storage Using Electronic Nose and Electronic Tongue

Abstract

The growth models of total bacterial count in freshly squeezed strawberry juice were established by gas and taste sensors in this paper. By selecting the optimal sensors and fusing the response values, the Modified Gompertz, Logistic, Huang and Baranyi models were used to predict and simulate the growth of bacteria. The results showed that the R2 values for fitting the growth model of total bacterial count of the sensor S7 (an electronic nose sensor), of sweetness and of the principal components scores were 0.890–0.944, 0.861–0.885 and 0.954–0.964, respectively. The correlation coefficients, or R-values, between models fitted by the response values and total bacterial count ranged from 0.815 to 0.999. A single system of electronic nose (E-nose) or electronic tongue (E-tongue) sensors could be used to predict the total bacterial count in freshly squeezed strawberry juice during cold storage, while the higher rate was gained by the combination of these two systems. The fusion of E-nose and E-tongue had the best fitting-precision in predicting the total bacterial count in freshly squeezed strawberry juice during cold storage. This study proved that it was feasible to predict the growth of bacteria in freshly squeezed strawberry juice using E-nose and E-tongue sensors.