Biomarker Aroma Compounds of Monofloral Honey From Kazakhstan by Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry (GC–MS) and Chemometric Analysis*

Abstract

The aroma compounds of honey provide useful information to determine the geographical origin. This work focuses on the study of aroma compounds of 16 honey samples using headspace (HS)-solid-phase microextraction (SPME) gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) to reaffirm the geographical features of 4 monofloral honey. 7 sunflower, 3 buckwheat, 2 agrimonia, and 4 tamarix monofloral honey samples were obtained from four regions of Kazakhstan. Moreover, the GC-MS data were applied to chemometric analysis for the common aroma compounds to discriminate the monofloral honeys. In total, 76 aroma compounds were detected and 72 were identified. α-Pinene, benzaldehyde, octanal, hotrienol, limonene, cosmene, nonanol, linalool oxide, dehydro-p-cymene, β-linalool, 2-nonen-1-ol, carvacrol, lilac aldehyde A, β-citral, 2-decen-1-al, and β-damascenone were identified as common aroma compounds for all honey types. According to principal component analysis (PCA), the aroma compounds of sunflower, buckwheat, agrimonia, and tamarix honey were distinguished. Dehydro-p-cymene, β-linalool, 2-nonen-1-ol, and linalool oxide were determined as dominant compounds for agrimonia honey, while nonanol, benzaldehyde, octanol, dehydro-p-cymene and β-linalool for buckwheat, β-citral, lilac aldehyde A, 2-decen-1-al, D-limonene, β-damascenone, linalool oxide for tamarix honey, and hotrienol, cosmene, α-pinene, and carvacrol for the sunflower product. PCA revealed that the dominant compounds for each honey could be used as biomarker compounds to detect the origin of the honey and possible adulteration, such as blending and inverted sugar addition.

Keywords:

• Agrimonia honey
• aroma compounds
• buckwheat honey
• chemometry
• headspace (HS)-solid-phase microextraction (SPME) gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC/MS
• monofloral honey
• principal component analysis (PCA)
• sunflower honey
• tamarix honey

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest and they have no actual or potential competing financial interests.

Data availability statement

Data will be made available on request.

Additional information

Funding

The authors, MO and BY, acknowledge TUBITAK with the 2221 – Fellowships for Visiting Scientists and Scientists on Sabbatical Leave program (Grant No. 2221/2018/2) for providing financial support.