Recent progress in the extraction of terpenoids from essential oils and separation of the enantiomers by GC–MS

Wang, Yixi; Huang, Jinchun; Lin, Xinyue; Su, Weike; Zhu, Peixi; Yang, Ni; Adams, Erwin

Abstract

Terpenoids possess significant physiological activities and are rich in essential oils. Some terpenoids have chiral centers and could form enantiomers with distinct physiological activities. Therefore, the extraction and separation of terpenoids enantiomers are very important and have attracted extensive attention in recent years. Meanwhile, the specific distribution and enantiomer excess results (the excess of one enantiomer over the other in a mixture of enantiomers) could be used as quality markers for illegitimate adulteration, origin identification, and exploring component variations and functional interrelations across different plant tissues. In this study, an overview of the progress in the extraction of terpenoids from essential oils and the separation of their enantiomers over the past two decades has been made. Extraction methods were retrieved by the resultant network visualization findings. The results showed that the predominant methods are hydrodistillation, solvent-free microwave extraction, headspace solid-phase microextraction and supercritical fluid extraction methods. GC–MS combined with chiral chromatography columns is commonly used for the separation of enantiomers, while 2D GC is found to have stronger resolution ability. Finally, some prospects for future research directions in the extraction and separation identification of essential oils are proposed.

Citation

Wang, Y., Huang, J., Lin, X., Su, W., Zhu, P., Yang, N., & Adams, E. (2024). Recent progress in the extraction of terpenoids from essential oils and separation of the enantiomers by GC–MS. Journal of Chromatography A, 1730, Article 465118. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chroma.2024.465118

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 23, 2024
• Online Publication Date: Jun 23, 2024
• Publication Date: Aug 16, 2024
• Deposit Date: Jul 1, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 24, 2025
• Journal: Journal of Chromatography A
• Print ISSN: 0021-9673
• Electronic ISSN: 1873-3778
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 1730
• Article Number: 465118
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chroma.2024.465118
• Keywords: Essential oil,Terpenoid, Extraction, GC–MS Enantiomer
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/36579983
• Publisher URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0021967324004928?via%3Dihub