Hydrostatic countercurrent chromatography and ultra high pressure LC: Two fast complementary separation methods for the preparative isolation and the analysis of the fragrant massoia lactones.

Using a one-step preparative hydrostatic countercurrent chromatography method, the fragrant massoia lactones were purified from the crude massoia bark oil, in less than 3 h. The fractionation was performed with the biphasic solvent system c-hexane-methanol-water (10:9:1, v/v/v), leading to target compounds with purity over 96%, as determined by GC-MS and ultra high pressure LC-MS analyses. Together with C-10, C-12 and C-14 massoia lactones, two other aromatic compounds used in perfumes, benzyl benzoate and benzyl salicylate, were also obtained as pure compounds. In parallel, an easy and efficient ultra high pressure LC method was developed for the ultra-fast analysis of massoia lactones, as an alternative to long GC-MS methods.