[Identification of volatile compounds of hawthorn by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS)]

The volatile compounds of three cultivars of hawthorn were studied. Changko (Crataegus pinnatifida Bge.) hawthorn fruit was harvested after ripening from Hubei Province and those of Heihong and Dajinxing were from Shandong Province. The volatile compounds of each hawthorn cultivars were obtained by SDE (simultaneous distillation-extraction) equipment, by using CH2Cl2 as extracting solvent. The volatile extract was concentrated at 40-50 degrees C under vacuum to 0. 05mL or so and was ready for GC and GC/MS analysis. A DB-Wax fused silica capillary column (50m x 0.32mm i.d.; 1microm thickness) and a flame ionization detector (FID) was employed in GC analysis. The temperature program included of a 5 min isothermal period at 40 degrees C, temperature increases of 2 degrees C/min from 40 degrees C to 240 degrees C, and a 60 min isothermal period at 240 degrees C. Mass spectra were obtained by electron impact at 70eV and a source temperature of 250 degrees C. Thirty-two volatile compounds of the hawthorn fruit were identified, which comprised 61%-68% of the volatile fraction. The ten major components were cis-3-hexenol, cis-3-hexenyl acetate, alpha-terpineol, furfural, hexanol, hexyl acetate, nonanal, citral, 3-penten-2-one and trans-2-decenal. The molecular weight range of the major volatile fraction covers from C3 to C10. Both qualitative and quantitative differences in the volatile constituents among the three cultivars were not remarkable.