Recently, using Hansen solubility parameters (HSP) as helpful
theoretical aid for the solvent selection has been aroused a strong
interest in predicting the solubility of natural bioactive compounds
in various solvents due to its high accuracy and good interpretability.
Hansen partitioned fundamental Hildebrand's energy into
three distinctive energy of dispersion, polar and hydrogen bonding,
which take a comprehensive consideration of intermolecular force
in order to better describe and to explain the interactions between
solutes and solvents (Hansen, 2000). Although the HSP of triglycerides
of the same kind can be calculated by their chemical
structures without considering the varying percentage of their
major constituent fatty acids, the theoretical solubility prediction of
volatile aroma compounds (VACs) in vegetable oils will not be
affected. The aim of this work is to understand the solubilization
effect of vegetable oils through theoretical and experimental
investigation on their performance in extracting VACs from basil as
an example. The predictive HSP of solvents and solutes were
compared first for a fast theoretical selection of vegetable oils as
alternatives to dichloromethane for the following experiments, in
which VACs in aromatized oils were quantified by HS-SPME/
GCeMS afterward. The analytical results were then processed with
the help of multivariate statistical analyses so that the optimal oil
with a considerable solvency can be determined.