Evaluation of the Relationship between Bacterial Population and Associated Gas Generation in Soaking Float of Sheep Skin Using a Sensor Array System

In this study it was aimed to design a metal oxide gas sensor array to determine the bacterial load in soaking float of wet-salted domestic sheep skin for garment leather production. The results showed that an array of 4 metal oxide gas sensors employed with Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) can predict the bacterial population in soaking float of leather manufacturing. The relationship between predicted and observed bacterial populations yielded a R2 value of 0.95 in model testing. Design procedures, gas sensors and other materials and techniques were explained in this paper.