Determinação de compostos orgânicos voláteis em méis de meliponíneos da região amazônica

Abstract

Beekeeping of stingless bees and honey production are activities carried out by various ancient and contemporary cultures with the aim of consuming honey or its derivatives. The domestication of these bees stands out due to their long-term domestication, high honey productivity, and profitability. Despite honey being a concentrated solution of sugars, it is a complex matrix whose composition and properties are influenced by various factors, such as botanical and geographical origin, which have an even greater impact on the composition of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Therefore, analyzing the VOCs present in honey has become an interesting strategy for its identification, as these compounds also influence the aroma and taste of the product. In this monograph, the goal was to qualitatively determine the VOCs in honey produced by the stingless bee species Jandaíra from the Amazon region, using the solid-phase microextraction headspace (HS-SPME) technique followed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis. A Box-Behnken experimental design was used to find the best extraction conditions in terms of temperature, fiber exposure time, and NaCl solution concentration in order to maximize the extraction of VOCs. The optimal conditions were determined to be 60 °C, 90 minutes, and 20% NaCl concentration. The chromatogram obtained after analysis under these optimized conditions showed approximately 206 peaks, of which 17 peaks with significant intensities and relative areas greater than 0.45% were selected. These compounds were provisionally identified by comparing their mass spectra with those available in the NIST library. The major compound detected was Hotrienol, accounting for about 45%, while the other compounds had significantly lower values ranging from 0.46 to 5.6%.