[Determination of minor flavor components in Chinese spirits by direct-injection technique with capillary columns]

Chinese spirits are among the best-known distilled alcoholic beverages in the world. Because of the longer multiple-strain fermentation, Chinese spirits are richer than yeast fermented western liquors in fragrance and mellow. The complex nature of Chinese spirits often makes it difficult to separate, identify and quantify major and minor flavor components. Among the several analytical methods for flavor components in Chinese spirits developed in recent years, the direct-injection technique using capillary columns is by far the best. In this study of direct injection with crosslinked PEG 20M, HP-INNOWax and bonded SGE BP21 columns, up to 68 flavor components including alcohols, organic acids, esters, acetals, carbonyl and heterocyclic compounds were identified with fine-tuning separation and followed by GC/MS to identify. The gas chromatographic separation of flavour components of Maotai Liquor by the method on PEG 20M, SGE BP21 and HP-INNOWax are shown. The compounds of the numbered peaks in the chromatograms are listed. Three compounds of, ie., amyl acetate, t-pentanol and 2-ethyl butyric acid, were used as internal standards to minimize discrimination in quantitative determination. The operation procedures for these tests were provided. The application identities of three capillary columns for the analysis of minor flavor components with direct injection were summarized respectively.