martedì 27 aprile 2010, ore 11:00 - 13:00
Palazzo delle Scienze, Aula Magna di Chimica
 
seminario
SELECTED METHODS OF LABORATORY ISOLATION AND SEPARATION OF FLAVOUR AND FRAGRANCE COMPOUNDS

 
del prof. Igor Jerković
Faculty of Chemistry and Technology (University of Split, Croazia)

 

 

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ABSTRACT

Volatile flavour and fragrance compounds are often present in small quantities and preliminary concentration is needed before the analysis. Conventional methods of volatiles isolation from plant materials include distillation methods (hydrodistillation (HD), water-steam distillation and steam distillation (SD)). During the isolation, artefacts (such as hydrolysis/decomposition products of mono- and sesquiterpenes or Maillard reaction products) can be generated due to the effect of heat and/or water on unstable organic compounds. Simultaneous distillation-extraction (SDE) enables isolation and concentration of the volatiles present in minor quantity in the samples. New methods for volatiles isolation were developed in our laboratory for the research of artefacts formation (co-distillation) and simultaneous isolation and fractionation of the volatiles according to water-solubility and volatility (hydrodistillation-adsorption). Extraction is another ubiquitous method for the isolation of flavour and fragrance compounds and the most abundant is solvent extraction (SE). However solvent extracts usually contain high-volatile and non-volatile compounds and colour compounds that can cause problems for further chromatography analyses. Ultrasonic assisted solvent extraction (USE) speeds up isolation of volatile and semi-volatile compounds from different matrix. Headspace extraction (HE) is another solvent-free, simple and fast method that isolates high-volatile compounds from small amount of the samples, but relative headspace compound concentrations do not reflect the sample compound concentration. Different HE methods are available: static and dynamic headspace as well as headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME).

The results of volatiles isolation from the plants and food samples with different extraction methods will be presented. The use of different methods often enables comprehensive data of the volatiles composition that can be of particular significance for recognition of botanical origin markers in the scope of chemical fingerprinting as well as traceability.

 
  

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INFO
dr. Carlo Tuberoso  PhD

Dipartimento di Tossicologia - Sez. Alimenti e Ambiente

tel. +39 070-6758644

fax. +39 070-6758612

e-mail: tuberoso@unica.it