AS305: Analytical workflows for successful aroma analysis

Measurement of the aroma compounds in food, beverages and home and personal care products are important for understanding consumer preference, product performance, investigating processes or investigating counterfeit products. Aroma compounds may be present at extremely low levels, resulting in the need for sensitive and robust methods.
There are a variety of techniques that can be employed for the analysis of volatiles, many of which can be fully automated, offering advantages such as speed, improved reproducibility, improved sustainability and reduced operator interaction. For some liquid samples, a simple ‘dilute and shoot’ approach may be possible, but to detect compounds present at low levels, some level of enrichment is often required. 
The choice of sample preparation will depend on the matrix, the analytes of interest (if known) and on the limits of detection required. Automated liquid- liquid extraction, including dispersive liquid liquid micro extraction (DiLLME) or headspace techniques such as solid phase microextraction (SPME) or Dynamic headspace (DHS) can provide a high level of enrichment.
The work set out in this application note discusses the choice of automated sample preparation technique and gives some comparisons of the results obtained for different matrices.