There has been growing concern over the emissions of formaldehyde and VOCs from automotive interior materials, as these could have an important impact on the in-vehicle air quality (IVAQ) of automotive vehicles. Odor, the components of which may include VOCs, refers to the automotive interior smell emitted directly or indirectly from any part of an automotive interior, based on human olfactory senses and a comfort evaluation of vehicle quality. The objective of this paper is to compare the instrument analysis with the sensory characteristics of an odor using GC/MS/Olfactometry. From the test, it was possible to identify the cause of odor, which can be difficult to distinguish among multiple odors, through the simultaneous performance of instrumental analysis and sensory evaluation.

There has been growing concern over the emissions of formaldehyde and VOCs from automotive interior materials, as these could have an important impact on the in-vehicle air quality (IVAQ) of automotive vehicles. Odor along with VOCs refers to the automotive interior smell emitted directly or indirectly from any part of an automotive interior, based on human olfactory senses and a comfort evaluation of vehicle quality. The objective of this paper is to compare the odor intensity using GC/MS analysis method and odor sensory test in accordance with ISO 12219-2. For the compounds having low odor threshold value and high VOC concentration, it was found that there was the same tendency in each field of odor whether the instrument analysis method or the odor sensory test method was used.