Analysis of Volatile Flavor Components of Virgin Coconut Oil during Normal Temperature Storage based on HS-SPME-GC-MS and Multivariate Statistical Analysis

In order to study the variation of volatile flavor components of virgin coconut oil during storage at room temperature. Headspace solid phase microextraction and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HS-SPME-GC-MS) was used to analyze virgin coconut oil in different oxidation stages. The results showed that 40 kinds of volatile components (8 common components) were identified, mainly including esters, aldehydes, ketones and acids. Relative odor activity value (ROAV) analysis showed that hexanal, 2-heptanone, δ-hexanolactone, nonanal, ethyl octanoate, δ-octalactone, 2-undecone, ethyl caprate and δ-decalactone were the key flavor substances in the storage process of virgin coconut oil at normal temperature. Combining principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares discrimination analysis (PLS-DA), a discriminant model for different storage periods of virgin coconut oil was established, which showed that in addition to the contents of different compounds (ketones, esters and acids) could be used as indicators to simply distinguish the storage period of virgin coconut oil, at least six key volatile components (2-heptanone, 2-hexanone, δ-hexanolactone, hexanal, caproic acid and δ-octalactone) could also be used to evaluate the oxidation of virgin coconut oil. Related research provided theoretical reference for the evaluation of virgin coconut oil flavor quality and degree of oxidation, and the findings would be conducive to the development of a new method for the identification of virgin coconut oil products with different degrees of freshness.