Determination of Volatile Compounds of Chinese Traditional Aromatic Sunflower Seeds (Helianthus annulus L.)

Chinese aromatic sunflower seeds (ASS) are a traditional snack food of China. During the production process, raw sunflower seeds were boiled by adding several traditional Chinese spices and then roasted to dryness, which lead to the formation of typical aroma, taste and healthful properties of ASS. In this study, volatile compounds from ASS were isolated by static headspace (HS) as well as simultaneous distillation and extraction (SDE) and determined with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The results show that the boiling process is necessary to obtain the typical aroma of ASS. A total of 82 compounds were identified, with phenols being the most abundant followed by spice components such as E-anethole and so on. Additionally, an SDE-GC/FID method was established to analyze the quantities of five main volatile compounds with eugenol being the most (16.06-29.30 mu g/g). The levels of these five compounds could be used to adjust parameters during production and processing.