Some aspects of dynamic headspace analysis of volatile components in honey

Purge and Trap (P&T) has been evaluated as a fractionation technique for the GC-MS analysis of the most volatile compounds in honey. The volatile fraction of twenty-two commercial honeys of eight different botanical sources (eucalyptus, thyme, citrus, rosemary, heather, lavender, multiflower and honeydew) was characterized by P&T-GC-MS. Hundred volatile compounds were characterized, 18 of them being determined for the first time in honey. Compounds detected included volatiles derived from the floral nectar or honeydew source such as terpenes, furan derivatives from honey processing and storage and other compounds whose origin could be related to microbial or environmental contamination. This method has also been validated with regard to data reproducibility; with relative data (percentage of total volatile composition) showing a better precision over quantitative results calculated using an internal standard. Application of multivariate statistical analysis to P&T-GC-MS data has shown to be very promising to classify samples according to their botanical origin.