Correlations between pulp properties of eucalyptus clones and leaf volatiles using automated solid-phase microextraction

Analysis of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOC) of 14 Eucalyptus clones has been performed using an automated headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) coupled to gas chromatography (GC)/ion trap mass spectrometry (ITMS) method. Correlations between pulp properties of Eucalyptus clones and the BVOC of their leaf headspaces were studied. The compounds R-terpineol and the sesquiterpene â-eudesmol were positively correlated with S5, a property related to the hemicelluose content in the pulp. Qualitative results obtained with automated HS-SPME were sufficient to group together the same species and related hybrids through cluster analysis and were confirmed through principal component analysis. A preliminary separation of the essential oils of Eucalyptus dunnii through comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography (GC × GC) showed ∼580 peaks compared to ∼60 in a typical GC/ITMS first-dimension chromatogram. The potential of HS-SPME coupled to GC × GC to improve the separation of Eucalyptus volatiles and other plant essential oils looks extremely promising for new applications of unsupervised learning methods