Volatile composition of hybrids Citrus juices by headspace solid-phase micro extraction/gas chromatography/mass spectrometry

The volatile compounds of Citrus juices have been extracted by headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) and analysed by gas chromatography (GC) and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). This work deals with the analysis of 65 cross pollinated hybrid fruits and their parents: mandarin (Citrus reticulata Blanco var. Willow Leaf) and clementine (Citrus reticulata × Citrus sinensis var. Commune). Among the 44 components identified which accounted for 90.2 to 99.8% of the volatile fraction, limonene (56.8–93.3%) and γ-terpinene (0.1–36.4%) were the major components in all samples. The clementine juice was characterised by the pre-eminence of limonene (90.0%) and a minor amount of γ-terpinene (1.2%) while the mandarin juice exhibited high amount of limonene (66.3%) and γ-terpinene (21.1%). All hybrid juices showed qualitatively similar composition but differing in the quantitative profile of the couple limonene/γ-terpinene. The principal component analysis (PCA) and the discriminant analysis indicated that hybrids samples were symmetrically distributed around the both parents. If some studies were found in the literature about mandarin juice, to our knowledge, this work is the first study on the volatile compounds of clementine juice and a large amount of hybrids.