No abstract

The creation of axillary body odor and its interaction with worn textiles is of continuing interest to textile manufacturers and finishers, product developers and marketers, and end users. This paper explains a novel proton transfer reaction – mass spectrometry model system to investigate the adsorption and release behavior of three fiber types commonly worn next to the skin (cotton, polyester, wool) for compounds found in body odor (dimethyl disulfide, 2-propanethiol, benzaldehyde, nonanal, butanoic acid, and 3-methyl-2-hexenoic acid). Three different patterns were observed: low relative adsorption and low overall release of the volatiles for cotton, high relative adsorption and continuous release of the volatiles for polyester, and high relative adsorption but low overall release for wool. This investigation, coupled with earlier studies by our group, goes some way to explain why the different fiber types are perceived as enhancing or suppressing body odor.

The volatile organic compound profile in beer is derived from hops, malt, yeast, and interactions between the ingredients, making it very diverse and complex. Due to the range and diversity of the volatile organic compounds present, the choice of the extraction method is extremely important for optimal sensitivity and selectivity. This study compared four extraction methods for hop-derived compounds in beer late hopped with Nelson Sauvin. Extraction capacity and variation were compared for headspace solid-phase micro extraction, stir bar sorptive extraction, headspace sorptive extraction, and solvent-assisted flavor evaporation. Generally, stir bar sorptive extraction was better suited for acids, headspace sorptive extraction for esters and aldehydes, while headspace solid-phase microextraction was less sensitive overall, extracting 40% fewer compounds. Solvent-assisted flavor evaporation with dichloromethane was not suitable for the extraction of hop-derived volatile organic compounds in beer, as the profile was strongly skewed towards alcohols and acids. Overall, headspace sorptive extraction is found to be best suited, closely followed by stir bar sorptive extraction.

Understanding odor volatiles known to constitute those emanating from the human body and how these interact with textiles is relevant to diverse interested parties because of changing fiber use, a better understanding of apparel life cycles including cleaning and the potential for fiber/textile re-use. This paper extends the application of our proton transfer reaction-mass spectrometry model system on adsorption and release behavior of fiber types typical of next-to-skin uses to include both viscose and other volatile organic compounds in body odor for which release has not previously been studied (hexanoic acid, acetone, cyclohexanone, hexanal, methyl butanoate, ethyl benzene, 1-octanol, decanal, butanoic acid). The current findings confirmed release patterns of different fiber types found in our earlier studies – low release of volatile organic compounds from cotton and wool, but higher release from polyester – and made a new finding of low release from viscose. Adsorption characteristics were different given the different volatile organic compounds analyzed. Viscose showed better adsorption characteristics for primarily polar volatile organic compounds, but was otherwise very similar to cotton.