Evaluation of aroma characteristics of sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) juice using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and electronic nose

Four kinds of sugarcane juice produced from four sugarcane varieties were analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and electronic nose (E-nose) to investigate the aroma characteristics. Thirteen volatile compounds were identified and the major volatiles were aldehydes, alcohols, phenols and ketones. According to the clustering analysis of volatile compounds and PCA of E-nose response data, juices of BC and YS were gathered as one group, and juices of BS and GS were classified into the other group. Different sugarcane juices could be discriminated clearly by E-nose using linear discriminant analysis (LDA). Hexane, 1-pentanol, 2-butanol, 1-penten-3-one, 2-octanol and acetaldehyde were highly correlated to the response signals of E-nose. For the sensory analysis, perceptible differences for the aroma comparison of BC vs. GS (p < 0.01) and YS vs. GS (p < 0.05) were obtained. The percentage of the population that perceived a difference between the juice of BC and GS was 17%-58%, compared with 9%-50% between YS and GS. GC-MS coupled with E-nose can be used as an alternative approach to evaluate and discriminate sugarcane juice produced from different cultivars due to its high sensitivity and objectivity.