Study on seafood volatile profile characteristics during storage and its potential use for freshness evaluation by headspace solid phase microextraction coupled with gas chromatography–mass spectrometry

Seafood volatile profile characteristics at different storage phases are various and can be used for freshness evaluation during storage. It is imperative to obtain the full volatile information prior to the further study of seafood volatile profile characteristics during storage. Also, the efficient data-processing method is another important factor for the interpretation of seafood volatile profile characteristics during storage and related potential volatile markers. In this work, a new analytical strategy, including the efficient sampling technique, sensitive detection and suitable data-processing method, for seafood freshness evaluation was developed based on the volatile profile characteristics during storage. First, the study of volatiles of seafood samples including razor clam, redspot swimming crab and prawn at different storage phases were conducted by headspace solid phase microextraction (HSSPME) followed by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) detection. Then, seafood volatile profile characteristics at different storage phases were statistically interpreted by a combination data-processing method including normalization, principle component analysis (PCA) and common model strategy. The different seafood volatile profile characteristics and potential volatile markers were attempted to be distilled. The results tentatively suggested that the different seafood volatile profile characteristics during storage could reflect the transitional changing seafood freshness and provide more precise warning information for seafood spoilage during storage than any single chemical markers. This work developed an analytical method for study of seafood volatile profile characteristics and tentatively proposed a new idea of using seafood volatile profile characteristics during storage for the freshness evaluation from the point of view of analytical chemistry.