THE GAS CHROMATOGRAPH WITH HUMAN SENSOR: PERFUMER MODEL

The image of the traditional perfumer is difficult to describe. In the first place, there are relatively few perfumers in the world, and they are generally not classified according to their abilities as strictly creative perfumers, control perfumers, or those most capable of performing duplication. A perfumer is, however, an artistic person with a highly developed discriminatory sense of smell. It is not unusual to find perfumers with an excellent range of odor memory covering hundreds of synthetic and natural raw materials. These he can identify accurately by name, oi at least characterize quite accurately when presented to him as unknown raw materials. In this paper, we will report our attempts to employ and develop these skills in a new way, that is, in conjunction with a gas chromatograph. The perfume chemist has found vapor phase chromatography to be one of the most useful tools for the rapid anallysis and evaluation of many complex perfumes and essential oils. Since its inception in 1952, much has been accomplished to improve and enhance the effectiveness of this powerful component separator. In fact, more than 4,000 publications have appeared since the original publication by James and Martin. Because of the limitations of space, we are assuming in this paper that the functional characteristics of the vapor phase chromatograph are known or are available to the reader. The electronic sensing device which transmits the information to the recorder, is commonly equipped with a “thermal conductivity detector,” “flame ionization detector,” or “beta-ray ionization detector.”