Dynamic Head Space Analyses of Orange Juice Flavor Compounds and Their Absorption into Packaging Materials

ABSTRACT: A simple, rapid, sensitive, and reproducible dynamic headspace gas chromatography (DH-GC) was developed to study the absorption of d-limonene, α-pinene, ethyl butyrate, and octanal into laminated polymeric packaging materials containing low-density polyethylene, polyethylene terephthalate, polyvinylidene chloride, and ethyl-ene-vinyl alcohol copolymers. The linear regression lines showed that the flavor compound peak areas were directly proportional to the concentrations of the standard flavor compounds with R ²≥ 0.97. The coefficients of variation for the DH-GC analyses were less than 4%. A test cell was designed to study orange juice flavor absorption into the packaging materials for 28 d at 25 °C. Ethyl butyrate or octanal absorption was not different among the 4 packaging materials ( P > 0.05). Addition of a polyethylene terephthalate and a ethylene-vinyl alcohol copolymer layer to the packaging materials reduced the d-limonene and α-pinene absorption by 20% and 50%, respectively.