Characterization of the volatile organic compounds produced from green coffee in different years by gas chromatography ion mobility spectrometry

The effect of storage time on green coffee volatile organic compounds (VOCs) was studied by their separation via head space solid-phase microextraction and identification via gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry. In total, 38 kinds of VOCs, mainly composed of alcohols, aldehydes, esters and ketones, were identified. The fingerprint showed that the VOCs produced by green coffee in different years had obvious differences, especially, acrolein, 3-methylbutyl acetate, butanoic acid, heptan-3-ol, and so on, that could be used to predict the storage time. In addition, with the increase of storage time, the contents of butanal, ethanol, dimethyl sulfide, propanal, butan-2-one had no obvious change, and could be considered as typical aroma characteristics of green coffee or special aroma components for variety identification. Meanwhile, principal component analysis (PCA) and “nearest neighbor” fingerprint analysis could also effectively distinguish green coffee with different storage times. Comprehensive analysis showed that GC-IMS technology could provide strong and favorable support for coffee storage.