Abstract
Artificial odorant is attached to city gas, which is originally odorless, in order for customers to detect gas leakage by their own olfaction. In this study, we noted indispensable aspect as city gas odor, which is “city gas odor should be hard to cause olfactory fatigue”. We defined olfactory fatigue as “situation under unidentification for odor quality, caused by continuous odor’s exposure”. And we tried to provide customers useful information about time-course transition of olfactory fatigue for city gas odor under city gas company’s leading.
First, using tertiary-butylmercaptan (hereafter, TBM) which is main ingredient of city gas odor, we performed real-time evaluation of perceived intensity to continuous odor’s exposure, And obtained time-course transitional approximation of olfactory fatigue, calculated by perceived intensity. This analysis showed that the time for olfactory fatigue among half customers would be about two minutes, after exposure to city gas odor.
Secondly, we performed the same evaluation mentioned above for additional three odorants familiar in Japanese daily life, and compared time-course transition of olfactory fatigue among TBM and three daily odorants. Results implied that TBM does not remarkably caused olfactory fatigue more easily than other odorants. Accordingly, we concluded that TBM was an odorant suitable for city gas odor.
