Discussion
5.1. Development of SPME method
The optimum conditions developed from the series of experi- ments shown in Fig. 1 were involving extraction with PDMSeCARBeDVB at 50 C for 4 h and desorption into GCeMS for 0.5 min. The optimisation pathway for the best fibre, optimum extraction temperature, time and desorption time are discussed in the following sections.
5.1.1. Fibre selection
The best fibre was selected according to following two criteria:
- The maximum number of peaks on the chromatogram extracted from the sample
- The lowest variability in abundance of individual volatile com- ponents/peaks in the chromatogram
PDMSeCARBeDVB met both of the above criteria, since it could extract many volatile components which are represented by the number of peaks appearing between 1 and 50 min (Fig. 2). PDMSeCARB and PDMSeDVB could also collect many volatile components, but they failed to meet the second criterion because the abundance of some volatile compounds was either too low or too high because of polarity incompatibility. PA gave poor re- covery and hence it was eliminated from the fibre selection scheme.
The results above are consistent with the suggestion by Pawliszyn (1997) that the combination of mixed phase coating is better than a single phase. This is because the fibres are usually coated with polymers of different polarity, so a wider range of analytes can be collected. On the other hand, PA contains only one phase and it is polar (Doong et al., 2000; Kataoka et al., 2000) which explains why there were not many wheat volatile components isolated by this fibre.