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Research on odor characteristics of typical odorants of railway vehicle products

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Abstract

Odor annoyance was a kind of environmental air pollution. Compared to other indoor environments, vehicle interior materials were not well studied. Especially, there had been little research on odor character of the railway vehicles. This study applied the OAV method to identify the key odorants of railway vehicle materials and discussed the characteristics of these odorants through Weber Fechner law and a dual variable method. The result showed that for single odorant, Weber Fechner law can be used to estimate the perceived intensity of an odor gas sample at different concentration levels. The odorant with smaller slope had significant tolerance to human. For the mixtures of odorants, the overall intensity of the mixture is generally dominated by the strongest odor intensity of the individual substance in the mixture, and positive interaction effect can be observed in mixtures whose intensities had little difference. But there was a kind of odorants, such as methacrylate, in which a very small variation in the concentration of mixtures can affect its odor intensity largely. Meanwhile, the odor intensity modification coefficient was an effective way to identify and evaluate odor interaction effect. The interaction potential of the studied odorants from strong to weak was methacrylate, dibutyl-amine, nonanal, 2-ethyl hexanol. The odor interaction potential and odor nature should be paying much attention in the improvement of odor in railway vehicle product.

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Data Availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, [Renzhe Li, lirenzhemail@163.com], upon reasonable request.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of System Integration for High-Power AC Drive Electric Locomotive, CRRC Zhuzhou Locomotive Co Ltd, Zhuzhou, 412001, Hunan, China

    Renzhe Li & Yuan Zhong

  2. Centre Testing International Group Co Ltd, Shenzhen, 518133, Guangdong, China

    Lingling Guan

Authors
  1. Renzhe Li
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  2. Yuan Zhong
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  3. Lingling Guan
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Renzhe Li, Yuan Zhong and Lingling Guan. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Renzhe Li and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Renzhe Li.

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All co-authors have seen and agree with the contents of the manuscript, and also agree to submit it as a research article to the Environmental Science and Pollution Research for consideration of publication.

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Li, R., Zhong, Y. & Guan, L. Research on odor characteristics of typical odorants of railway vehicle products. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 78216–78228 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-27858-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-27858-6

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