Analysis of diacetyl in wine using solid-phase microextraction combined with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

Analytical difficulties in the rapid and accurate determination of diacetyl (DA), an important flavor compound in wine, at low concentrations have been overcome by the use of solid-phase microextraction (SPME) with deuterated diacetyl-d(6) (d6-DA) as an internal standard followed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The GC-MS analyses showed that the values of the ion response ratio of DA to d6-DA were consistent regardless of the conditions of SPME headspace and were not influenced by the presence of sulfur dioxide in wine. The quantitation value of DA was represented as the concentration of free plus bound with sulfur dioxide forms of DA. The detection limit of DA in wine was as low as 0.01 microg/mL with linearity through to 10 microg/mL.