Analysis of summer and winter savories volatiles using static headspace and SPME coupled with GC-MS

Abstract

Winter savory (Satureja montana L.) and summer savory (Satureja hortensis L.) belong to aromatic plants of the Lamiaceae family. Both savories are widely used as culinary herbs due to the strong spicy flavour; also biological activity of these plants is demonstrated. This study was focused on the comparative evaluation of volatile compounds profile of both plants using different headspace techniques, i.e. direct injection of volatiles from the headspace (static headspace, sHS) and sorption of volatile compounds on a solid phase microextraction fiber (SPME). In this case, compounds were absorbed on 65 μm polydimethylsiloxane/divinylbenzene SPME fiber. Volatile compounds were separated and identified employing gas chromatography with mass spectrometric detection. Total 20 and 18 different compounds were detected in the headspace of S. montana and S. hortensis, respectively. The determined differences between these tested plants were more quantitative, than qualitative. However some minor compounds were not found in every of savories, for example, trans-β-ocimene was detected only in the headspace of S. hortensis, while cis-β-ocimene – of S. montana. γ-Terpinene composed more than 63.0% of the headspace of S. hortensis (determined by both techniques), while S. montana contained only 37.1 and 19.9% of this monoterpene detected by sHS and SPME, respectively. Relatively high amounts of carvacrol were found in both plants by SPME, i.e. 31.0% in S. montana and 16.8% in S. hortensis, while only 2.7 and 0.7% were detected by sHS in S. montana and S. hortensis, respectively. It is evident, that differences between these two techniques are significant.