The Molded Foam Industry Panel and Alpha M.O.S. are Working Together to Eliminate Human Panel Odor Testing

Odor testing requires the intimate involvement of people to do testing and rating of various materials.  With the increased emphasis of corporations to improve Environment, Health and Safety, there is a desire to minimize the human interaction with odor testing.  At the same time and in conjunction with an increased emphasis on reducing volatile organic compounds (VOC ) in vehicles, rigorous testing is required to produce vehicles with acceptable odor performance.

The Molded Foam Industry Panel (MFIP), a panel which represents member companies of North American OEMs, major Tier 1s, Molders and chemical suppliers, chartered a team to investigate odor testing with the goal of minimizing or ideally eliminating human odor panel testing.  Initial round robin tests were completed on eight samples to give baseline understanding of volatile organic compound (VOC) analysis, odor panel testing and artificial sensory evaluation testing using equipment provided by Alpha M.O.S.

 The human odor panel testing was inconclusive as no discrimination was determined between the eight samples while analytical testing did confirm the presence of the spiked materials.  Fortunately, the Alpha M.O.S. equipment, FOX E-nose and HERACLES GC nose, had identified differences between the foams.

A second round of testing is being prepared based on the lessons learned in the first set of tests.  The goal is to correlate the electronic nose with the human odor panel to show that the electronic nose can minimize human odor panel testing. 

Footnote:  The Molded Foam Industry Panel is an Advisory body to the Auto Industry with the mission to recommend critical “Functional” performance tests, elimination of redundant and obsolete tests, reduce the cost of tests by harmonizing the critical tests among the member companies. The Panel operates with complete and unconditional application of the Anti-Trust Laws.  For more information on the Odor Testing work, please contact Allan James at allanjames@dow.com.