Sampling volatile compounds from natural products with headspace/solid-phase micro-extraction

Recent advances in the development of analytical methods based on headspace/solid-phase micro-extraction (HS/SPME) of natural aroma compounds are reviewed, with special emphasis on increasing reproducibility. Representative examples of applications of HS/SPME to the determination of components at trace levels, strategies for fiber selection, and improvement of SPME sampling conditions are presented. Examples of applications to quality control and sample classification, based on aroma profiling were selected to highlight the use of multivariate statistical methods.