Comparison of the volatile compounds of Atractylodes medicinal plants by headspace solid-phase microextraction-gas chromatography–mass spectrometry

Atractylodes macrocephala (baizhu) and Atractylodes lancea (cangzhu), which are two famous Atractylodes medicinal plants, have traditionally been used as important ingredient of several Chinese herbal medicines. The volatile constituents are the main active components in them. To avoid the traditional and time-consuming hydrodistillation, the analyses of volatile components in baizhu and cangzhu were carried out by means of headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) coupled to gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS). The headspace volatiles were collected using a polydimethylsiloxane–divinylbenzene (PDMS–DVB, 65 μm) fiber. The extraction conditions including extraction temperature, equilibrium time, extraction time and desorption time were optimized using the total peak areas as index. The best response was obtained when the extraction temperature, equilibrium time, extraction time and desorption time were 70 °C, 30, 30 and 4 min, respectively. Thirty-six components representing 90.72% of the total peak areas of baizhu were identified. The highest content component of the HS-SPME sample of baizhu was atractylone (40.12%). For cangzhu, 56 components representing 90.38% of the total peak areas of cangzhu were identified and the highest content component of the HS-SPME sample of cangzhu was eudesma-4(14),11-diene (16.49%). This study showed that baizhu and cangzhu have 23 common components. The result suggested the developed method could be used to compare the similarities and differences between the above-mentioned two Chinese herbs.