Abstract

The new hybrid technique which combines gas chromatography and quadruple time of flight mass spectrometry (GC.MS.EI/Q.TOF) were used for the first time in screening and identification of multiple compounds of agarwood chipwood incense smoke and volatile headspace. To explore chemical constituent of Aquilaria malaccensis which result in the generation of a complex array of secondary metabolites, we described gas chromatography method, coupled to accurate mass time-of-flight mass spectrometry (Q.TOFMS.EI) for the untargeted and comprehensive chemical profiling of chipwood from naturally infected A. quilaria malaccensis trees. Chemical components of agar-wood were extracted by applying a new technique; trapping smoke from burning incense and volatile headspace. The SPME.HS technique, solid phase microextraction (SPME) was employed and gas chromatography (GC.MS.EI/Q.TOF) were used as identification tools for the analysis. Divinylbenzene-carboxen-polydimethyl siloxane (DVB-CAR-PDMS) 50/30 μm fibre was used to extract, and analyze volatile compounds. In total, more than 550 peaks were detected, of which tentative identification of 28 of these compounds was reported, representing the major compounds that are mentioned in the literature of the oil studies. The total ion chromatogram detected compounds are distributed among a wide range over the chemical families. Furthermore, the feasibility of this methodology was achieved in grading agarwood chipwood by correlating the obtained chemical profiles of incense smoke and volatile headspace with the extracted oil profile from agarwood, is mentioned in detail; by the way, the major compounds found was represented by β-agarofuran, dihydro 1.27%, γ-cadinene 3.06%, α-bulnesene 3.68%, cadina-1(10),6,8-triene 3.96%, alloaromadendrene 2.09%, cadalene 3.93%, longifolene 2.43% and δ-cadinene 5.01%. This work was one of the very few works that provided information about agarwood chipwood of A. malaccensis which represented a valuable data. Further-more, the study revealed that the characterization of compounds from agarwood chip- wood was highly possible through incense smoke and volatile compounds.