Isolation, Purification and Characterization of Flavor Compounds in the Fruit Pulp of Sysepalum dulcificum

Flavour is an organoleptic responds to parameter commonly described as taste which can be classified as natural, nature-identical or artificial flavouring substances. In this study, cold and hot ethanolic extracts , were obtained from Synepalum dulcificum ((Daniell) known locally as ntum in Akaeze dialect of Igbo language of Nigeria and traditionally used as sweetener were evaluated for its flavourant principles. The presence of bioactive components was detected and the result revealed that hot ethanol gave the highest percent extract recoveries of 3.33% while the cold extraction technique yielded 1.81 %. The result of sensory evaluation of purified extract showed that no significant difference was observed between these values except for sample 760 (p<0.05). Chromatographic analysis of cold ethanol extract revealed that component E-1 has a melting point of 66-68oC while the GC analysis of E-1showed the eluate of two compounds at different retention times of 12.692 and 15.133 minutes respectively. Spectral Analysis of compounds in E-1(a, b) revealed that they are possible isomers and based on spectral data the structure of compound E-1a was established as 2, 5-dimethyl-2, 4-dihydroxy-3(2H)-furanone while E-1b was established as 3, 5-dihydroxy-6-methyl-2, 3-dihydro-4H-pyranone Keywords: Flavour, purification, Syepalum dulcificum, bioactive, characterization