Characterization of essential oil components of Iranian geranium oil using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry combined with chemometric resolution techniques

The essential oil components of geranium oil cultivated in center of Iran were identified and determined using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry data combined with the chemometric resolution techniques. A total of 61 components accounting for 91.51% were identified using similarity searches between the mass spectra and MS database. This number was extended to 85 components using chemometric techniques. Various chemometric methods such as morphological scores, simplified Borgen method (SBM) and fixed size moving window evolving factor analysis (FSMWEFA) were used for determining the number of components, pure variables, zero concentration and selective regions. Then the overlapping peak clusters were resolved into pure chromatograms and pure mass spectra using heuristic evolving latent projections (HELP) method. A characteristic feature of the Iranian geranium oil is the absence of 10-epi-γ-eudesmol in its constituents compared with the oil from northern and southern parts of India. The results of this work show that combination of hyphenated chromatographic methods and resolution techniques provide a complementary method for accurate analysis of essential oils.