Complementary assessment of nano-packaged garlic properties by electronic nose

It is crucial to initiate appropriate storage conditions for garlic depending on its properties. Fungal contamination can reduce the quality of garlic through changes in its properties which result in its aroma alteration. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of treatments such as fungal infection (FI), material of packaging (MP), and storage duration (SD) on various characteristics of garlic. An electronic nose was used complementarily to trace the aroma changes as a non-destructive indicator. The Fusarium oxysporum (FS), Alternaria embellisia (AL), and Botrytis allii (BT) fungi were adopted for inoculation. The low-density polyethylene (LDPE) and silicone nano-emulsions (SNE) were used for packing samples. The data were analyzed by diverse approaches such as ANOVA, PLS, PCA, LDA, and BPNN. The results revealed that the evaluated properties changed during the storage. The implementation of treatments altered the intensity of these changes. The highest values of weight loss (21.14%), color changes (50.21), and acidity (7.48) were observed in the FS-infected samples kept in LDPE for 28 days. The accuracy of PCA, LDA, and BPNN in the multivariate analysis of aroma had an increasing-decreasing trend. The best accuracy of PCA in categorizing the FI and MP treatments achieved in the twelfth day of storage (96%). The optimal accuracy of classifications based on FI and MP treatments was obtained at d#12 (100%) and d#24 (100%), respectively. The PLS exposed that the aroma changes in garlic had a high correlation with the changes of studied properties (R ² ≥ .7), except for the mechanical properties.