Identification and Determination of Flavor Compounds in Dietary Supplements

The dietary supplements market is valued at over 150 billion dollars (U.S.) worldwide. Dietary supplements are manufactured products that come in many forms, such as pills, capsules, powders, liquids, or tablets. They are used to supplement a person’s diet. The nutrients can be synthetic or extracted from natural sources. Many of these products contain flavoring agents, making them more palatable.

This document outlines a methodology for the determination of flavor compounds in dietary supplements using stir bar sorptive extraction. Quantitation was accomplished by automating the spiking of Tenax-TA® filled sorbent tubes. A retention index standard was also introduced using automated spiking. The GERSTEL Internal Standard/Dry Purge Plus (ISDP+) module is a station that attaches to the MPS rail and is used for automated spiking of standards, internal standards, or a retention index mix. The ISDP+ can also be used to dry purge sorbent tubes where excess water or solvent may adversely affect the trapping and transfer of analytes from the adsorbent tube to the GC column.