Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Publications
Campus Units
Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering, Food Science and Human Nutrition, Environmental Science, Toxicology, Bioeconomy Institute (BEI)
Document Type
Article
Publication Version
Published Version
Publication Date
1-31-2021
Journal or Book Title
Separations
Volume
8
Issue
2
First Page
15
Research Focus Area(s)
Biological and Process Engineering and Technology
DOI
10.3390/separations8020015
Abstract
The association between humans and cats (Felis catus) is well known. This domestic animal is also known for its malodorous urine and feces. The complexity of the odorous urine and feces impacts human life by triggering the human sensory organ in a negative way. The objective of this research was to identify the volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) and associated odors in cat urine and feces using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry and simultaneous sensory analysis of fresh and aged samples. The solid-phase microextraction (SPME) technique was used to preconcentrate the VOCs emitted from urine or feces samples. Twenty-one compounds were identified as emitted from fresh urine, whereas 64 compounds were emitted from fresh feces. A contrasting temporal impact was observed in the emission of VOCs for urine and feces. On aging, the emission increased to 34 detected chemicals for stale urine, whereas only 12 chemicals were detected in stale feces. Not all compounds were malodorous; some compounds had a pleasant hedonic smell to the human nose. Although trimethylamine, low-molecular-weight organic acids, and ketones were contributors to the odor to some extent, phenolic compounds and aromatic heterocyclic organic N compounds generated the most intense odors and substantially contributed to the overall malodor, as observed by this study. This work might be useful to formulate cat urine and feces odor remediation approaches to reduce odor impacts.
Access
Open
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Copyright Owner
The Author(s)
Copyright Date
2021
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Banik, Chumki; Koziel, Jacek A.; and Li, James Z., "Simultaneous Chemical and Sensory Analysis of Domestic Cat Urine and Feces with Headspace Solid-Phase Microextraction and GC-MS-Olfactometry" (2021). Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Publications. 1172.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/abe_eng_pubs/1172
Comments
This article is published as Banik, Chumki, Jacek A. Koziel, and James Z. Li. "Simultaneous Chemical and Sensory Analysis of Domestic Cat Urine and Feces with Headspace Solid-Phase Microextraction and GC-MS-Olfactometry." Separations 8, no. 2 (2021): 15. DOI: 10.3390/separations8020015. Posted with permission.