Quality attributes and chemical composition of commercial cinnamon oils

Cinnamon oil is commercially available and has been used by the food, fragrance and pharmaceutical industries. In present work, 22 batches of commercial cinnamon oils from different brands were investigated. There are no significant differences in the appearance profiles and physicochemical properties between the samples, but great variation in the content of cinnamaldehyde was found by gas chromatography quantitative analysis. They were further chemically characterised by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and 54 volatile compounds were identified. According to principal component analysis of the GC-MS data set, the samples were clustered into three distinct groups with higher concentrations of cinnamaldehyde, diethyl phthalate, and eugenol as their markers, respectively. Moreover, coumarin, a hepatotoxic natural compound, was detected in some samples, which indicated that the samples with higher level of cinnamaldehyde and limited amount of coumarin would be better choice for efficacious and safe use.