Abstract: A flash evaporation followed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (FE-GC-MS) for the analysis of volatile components of Curcuma wenyujin Y.H Chen et C.Ling is described. FE parameters including FE temperature, mass and particle size of sample were optimized. More than 60 compounds on the chromatogram were obtained at 200℃ of FE temperature using 0.4mg of sample of 120 μm size. The comparison among FE, steam distillation (SD) and solid-phase microextraction (SPME) was carried out. The totals of 40, 38 and 36 compounds were assigned in FE, SD and SPME, respectively, by MS combined with retention indices(RI). The relative peak areas of five active constituents (curzerene, curcumol, β-elemenone, germacrone, curdione) obtained by FE were similar to those obtained by SD and SPME. The result shows that the FE-GC-MS is a simple, convenient, sensitive and solvent-free method suitable for the analysis of volatile compounds from C.wenyujin.

Key words: Curcuma wenyujin Y.H Chen et C.Ling, flash evaporation, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry