GC-MS of volatile components of Schisandra chinensis obtained by supercritical fluid and conventional extraction

In this paper, the volatile compounds of Schisandra chinensis obtained by different extraction techniques including supercritical fluid extraction (SFE), steam distillation (SD), Soxhlet extraction (SE) and ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) were investigated for the first time. The sample preparation procedure for GC-MS analysis of the volatile compounds was optimized and then 37, 45, 27 and 37 compounds were identified in the samples obtained by SFE, SD, SE and UAE methods, respectively. As the therapeutic effect of the traditional Chinese medicine is usually based on multifarious essential components or the combination of them instead of only one component, the volatile compounds were compared in groups with the extracts by SE, SD and UAE. This would be more reasonable to evaluate the effects of an alternative technique to extracting multifarious essential components. Among the identified components in the SFE extract, 32 compounds were the same as that by three conventional methods, accounting for 90.5% of the volatile compounds identified. However, as the volatile compounds were classed into groups, it was easy to see that the Schisandra chinensis oil extracted by SFE was made up largely of aromatics and sesquiterpenoids (52.1 and 27.6%, respectively), with less amounts of monoterpenoids and other compounds, distinguishing SFE from the conventional extractions.