Dynamic headspace analysis of fresh tomato juices.

The methods used to isolate volatile compounds for GC analyses can cause profound effects on the quantitative and qualitative composition of the injected sample, and exert a great influence in the resultant bioactivity of volatiles. Especially with plant tissues like tomatoes, the isolation of volatile constituents using classical methods may yield results which are not representative of the chemicals present in the natural material. Headspace sampling methods may be advantageous in capturing the same volatile compounds emitted from tomatoes that are detected by the human nose. This study utilized an extremely sensitive dynamic headspace sampling with thermal desorption method to determine volatile components of fresh tomato juices. The method proved very sensitive for the isolation of tomato volatiles and concentrations of flavor compounds were much greater than related literature studies.