A New Approach to Estimate the Elution Characteristics of Odorants in Chewing Gum during Chewing

Abstract

The aim of this study was to develop a new approach that can be used to estimate the elution characteristics of odorants from chewing gum into saliva during chewing using a chewing apparatus and to apply the approach to the prediction of their elution ratios. The odorants eluted from the model chewing gum were analyzed by a gas chromatography-flame ionization detector using the adsorptive column method and Headspace-solid phase microextraction (HS-SPME). It was found that the quantitative data obtained from each analytical method are in proportion and that the measured value obtained from HS-SPME, which is easy to operate, could convert the quantitative data obtained from the adsorptive column method. Therefore, it was demonstrated that the amounts of odorants eluted from chewing gum and their release curves could be easily determined by a combination of the two methods. In addition, it was recognized that there was a good overall regression coefficient between the elution ratio of the odorants in the model chewing gum after a 20-min chewing run and the difference between the retention indices on the polar and apolar stationary phase of GC columns (ΔI). Therefore, ΔI is the most important factor for predicting the elution ratio of odorants in chewing gum during chewing.