Gas chromatography (GC) is first employed for analysis of volatile compounds such as odor, flavor, etc., and sample preparation is important for it.

MonoTrap is a simple and powerful extraction tool for sample preparation, which is made of high purity silica gel having the large surface area provided by the three dimensional silica monolith’s network. MonoTrap offers unmatched adsorption and desorption efficiency, and is suitable tool for both liquid and air samples. The solvent extraction or the thermal desorption using a device such as TD265 are selectable as a method of elution/desorption of the analytes from MonoTrap.

In this study, MonoTrap was used for the analysis of malodors volatilized from a piece of cloth which sprayed a deodorant after adding of malodor.

This study demonstrates the benefits of MonoTrap to determine trace level analytes with easy operation.

A gas chromatograph mass spectrometer (GC-MS) is mainly used for instrumental analysis of odor evaluation. Solid-phase microextraction (SPME) is often used as a sample extraction method for GC-MS in odor analysis because of its simplicity. However, the conventional SPME method has problems that the amount of sorption phase is not enough for trace compounds and the mechanical durability is low. In recent years, SPME Arrow has been developed to solve these problems while retaining the advantages of SPME. In this paper, we explained the features and analysis example of SPME Arrow.

In recent years, the demand for scent analysis in several fields such as plants, animals, environment, food, and cosmetics has been just increasing. In general, multi-component separation analysis are performed by GC-MS, however there are many cases where key compounds due to odor cannot be found just by looking at the chromatogram. To solve this problem, sample collection/ injection systems and data analysis systems are powerful ally tool. In this chapter, it is introduced GC-MS analysis software and mass spectrum library containing more than 9000 aromatic compounds.

The aerial algae, Trentepohlia aurea (Linnaeus) Martius has distinctive “violet aroma”. The objective of this research was to identify the subjectively perceptible aroma compounds which derive from T. aurea. To identify aroma compounds from T. aurea, this study introduced an analytical system of Gas Chromatography-Olfactometry (GC-O), Gas Chromatography-Fractionation system (GC-F), gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and aroma specific database. The α-terpinene and 2-pentylfuran were identified (2-methyl-6-hepten-1-ol and β-ionone were tentatively identified) as major aroma compounds from T. aurea. Those compounds would be useful markers for chemical taxonomy of T. aurea.

Among the beef cattle (Wagyu) industry in Japan, stress control of Wagyu has been the important issue to improve reproduction efficiency. To evaluate the stress with easy way, this study focused on the use of skin gas from Wagyu as stress indicator. As the basic research, this study attempted to develop the analytical method of skin gas from Wagyu. As the sampling method of skin gas, sampling device specific for Wagyu and the way to attach the device on the back of Wagyu were developed. Although the skin gas collected from Wagyu was analyzed by GC-MS, specific skin gas was not detected. By using gas chromatography-olfactometry (GC-O), gas chromatography-fractionation system (GC-F), and GC-MS, skin gas specific for Wagyu was identified as (E)-3-Octen-2-one. Further research is required to evaluate the relationship between skin gas and stress on Wagyu to find the stress indicator.

As Japanese family keeps their dogs mainly in a house, they have a lot of opportunities for feeling the natural dog odor in daily life. The characteristic volatiles of the used pet-sheet and the cleaner pack filled with hair of dogs of corgi type were collected by dynamic headspace sampling method, and their samples were analyzed with GC/MS and GC-olfactometry experiment. Two strong odor active compounds, 3-methylbutyric acid and 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, were estimated to be the major malodorous constituents in those samples and both were successfully to detect with GC/MS. This was the first report on a dog smell.