Grouping of tap waters by mineral composition and several properties, using principal component analysis, to identify significant influential factors to the taste.

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24500958
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Eating habits, studies on eating habits
• Research Institution: Hagoromo International University
• Principal Investigator: IKE AKIKO 羽衣国際大学, 人間生活学部, 教授 (70379139)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 川瀬 雅也 長浜バイオ大学, バイオサイエンス学部 (90224782)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 水道水 / ミネラル成分 / 味評価 / 主成分解析 / 判別分析

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The relationship between the taste of tap waters and their properties, mineral composition, pH, hardness and other physical and chemical properties, was investigated. By the principal component analysis based on the concentrations of Na，Ca，K，Mg，Si and several physical and chemical properties, the tap waters supplied from 20 areas in Japan, were divided to three groups.　The tap waters with high estimations of taste belong to the group which have rower concentration on Si and Ca, and which is the surface water. Discriminant analysis also shows that the concentration of Si and Ca gives high contribution in diving tap waters into two groups based on tasting test. The value of pH of tap water is also suggested to be an important factor in discriminant analysis.
Discriminant analysis shows no contradiction with principal component analysis. The obtained results suggest the following possibility that the concentration of Si and Ca, and pH relate with the taste of tap water.

Free Research Field

食品衛生学