Fresh and grilled eel volatile fingerprinting by e-Nose, GC-O, GC–MS and GCxGC-QTOF combined with purge and trap and solvent-assisted flavor evaporation

Authors: Xu-Hui Huang, Xu Zheng, Zeng-Hui Chen, Yu-Ying Zhang, Ming Du, Xiu-Ping Dong, Lei Qin, Bei-Wei Zhu

Abstract

Fresh and grilled eel were investigated with respect to their volatile compounds and different fingerprinting techniques. An electronic nose (e-Nose) was applied to distinguish the odor between fresh and grilled eels. Purge and trap (P&T) and solvent-assisted flavor evaporation (SAFE) method were used to extract volatile compounds and further analyzed by a gas chromatographic combined with quadrupole mass spectrometry (GC–MS) and a two-dimensional gas chromatographic combined with hybrid quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC × GC-QTOF). SAFE extracted more ketone, alcohol and high boiling volatiles in eels than P&T. Considering some distinct compounds extracted by P&T, a P&T and SAFE combined method was chosen. There were 155 volatiles detected in fresh and grilled eels, 93 volatiles were identified. Due to the higher peak capacity, GC × GC-QTOF detected 39 compounds more than GC–MS. The key characteristic volatiles of grilled eel were methyl propyl disulfide, dimethyl trisulfide, heptane, octane, and camphene. Volatile fingerprinting can be a reference benchmark for identification and quality appraisal of fresh and grilled eel products.

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