ABSTRACT
A system for determining odour strengths in terms of dilutions to detection threshold, now based on the Warren Spring Laboratory (WSL) Transportable olfactometer, has been used at numerous locations throughout the United Kingdom for the assessment of thousands of odour samples. After a short discussion of the requirements for practical olfactometry, the main features of the WSL olfactometer and sampling procedure are outlined. (A full description has been published elsewhere (1).) Various choices can be made in this type of olfactometry: screened/unscreened panellists, panel size, sample replication, dilution steps; the effect of these choices on the 95% confidence limits is quantified. The range of tasks to which the WSL Transportable olfactometer has been applied is very briefly described as background to the expression of some cautionary views on the possibility of ’standardisation’.
