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Capillary gas chromatography in essential oil analysis
of Chromatography, 402 (1987) 3% Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., Amsterdam -
Journal
Printed in The Netherlands
CHROM. 19 643
Book Review
Capillary gas chromatography in essential oil analysis, edited by P. Sandra and C.
Bicchi, Hiithig, Heidelberg, Basel, New York, 1987, XIV + 435 pp., price DM 98.00, US$ 47.00, ISBN 3-7785-0860-l. The very specific title of the book gives the authors a sufficient excuse to treat the main subject, the analysis of essential oils, incompletely. Already the introduction shows that the title does not correspond to the content. The first chapter gives an “introduction to essential oil analysis”, which curiously begins in 1941 with the paper of Martin and Synge. It continues by ignoring all papers which have something to do with the chromatographic analysis of essential oils, including reports from our laboratory on the analysis of the oil of lime and mandarine peel oil. This could be due either to the fact that these works were published in Helvetica Chimica Acta in German or to the fact that open-tubular columns had not been used in these investigations. Let us examine the subsequent chapters: Two of them (3 and 4) treat sample preparation and handling specific to essential oils. The title of the excellent Chapter 6 is misleading. It does not describe only chromatographic “fingerprints” of essential oils, but gives a very good general appreciation of the organoleptic importance of the components; it gives information about their occurrence and their discovery. The following chapters describe the identification of the individual components by retention indices (8 and 9), gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy (10 and 11) and by Fourier-transform infrared techniques (13). Chapter 14 advocates the use of more then one stationary phase. By naming this technique “multidimensional gas chromatography” it suggests that this is a new discovery. However, in our analyses we always used systematically a non-polar and a polar type stationary phase for the isolation of components by preparative gas chromatography. Chapter 5 gives interesting information about the composition of the gas phase above the oil. Actually, this determines the organoleptic quality of the oil as an entity. Finally, in order to justify the word “capillary” in the title of the book, Chapter 3 treats the “selection of capillary columns for essential oil analysis”. The title of the chapter is partly misleading as it treats the selection of the columns in general, and not specifically for the analysis of essential oils. If I were a beginner in the field of essential oil analysis, I certainly would buy this book. I would regret to have acquired chapters like the first., but the amount spent would be worthwhile for the chapters written by Lamparsky, Teisseire and those on sample preparation and on the identification of the components. Consequently the book is worth its money, in comparison to the very expensive edition entitled Essential Oils (!) Analysis by Capillary Gas Chromatography by V. FormBEek and K.-H. Kubeczka (Wiley, 1982; SFr. 240.00). The book could also serve as a good first draft for a modern treatise on “The Analysis of Essential Oils”. Lausanne (Switzerland)
E. sz. KOVATS
Journal
Printed in The Netherlands
CHROM. 19 643
Book Review
Capillary gas chromatography in essential oil analysis, edited by P. Sandra and C.
Bicchi, Hiithig, Heidelberg, Basel, New York, 1987, XIV + 435 pp., price DM 98.00, US$ 47.00, ISBN 3-7785-0860-l. The very specific title of the book gives the authors a sufficient excuse to treat the main subject, the analysis of essential oils, incompletely. Already the introduction shows that the title does not correspond to the content. The first chapter gives an “introduction to essential oil analysis”, which curiously begins in 1941 with the paper of Martin and Synge. It continues by ignoring all papers which have something to do with the chromatographic analysis of essential oils, including reports from our laboratory on the analysis of the oil of lime and mandarine peel oil. This could be due either to the fact that these works were published in Helvetica Chimica Acta in German or to the fact that open-tubular columns had not been used in these investigations. Let us examine the subsequent chapters: Two of them (3 and 4) treat sample preparation and handling specific to essential oils. The title of the excellent Chapter 6 is misleading. It does not describe only chromatographic “fingerprints” of essential oils, but gives a very good general appreciation of the organoleptic importance of the components; it gives information about their occurrence and their discovery. The following chapters describe the identification of the individual components by retention indices (8 and 9), gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy (10 and 11) and by Fourier-transform infrared techniques (13). Chapter 14 advocates the use of more then one stationary phase. By naming this technique “multidimensional gas chromatography” it suggests that this is a new discovery. However, in our analyses we always used systematically a non-polar and a polar type stationary phase for the isolation of components by preparative gas chromatography. Chapter 5 gives interesting information about the composition of the gas phase above the oil. Actually, this determines the organoleptic quality of the oil as an entity. Finally, in order to justify the word “capillary” in the title of the book, Chapter 3 treats the “selection of capillary columns for essential oil analysis”. The title of the chapter is partly misleading as it treats the selection of the columns in general, and not specifically for the analysis of essential oils. If I were a beginner in the field of essential oil analysis, I certainly would buy this book. I would regret to have acquired chapters like the first., but the amount spent would be worthwhile for the chapters written by Lamparsky, Teisseire and those on sample preparation and on the identification of the components. Consequently the book is worth its money, in comparison to the very expensive edition entitled Essential Oils (!) Analysis by Capillary Gas Chromatography by V. FormBEek and K.-H. Kubeczka (Wiley, 1982; SFr. 240.00). The book could also serve as a good first draft for a modern treatise on “The Analysis of Essential Oils”. Lausanne (Switzerland)
E. sz. KOVATS