rapid analysis of 27 volatile sulfur compounds in wine by headspace solid-phase microextraction gas chromatography tandem mass spectrometry

Volatile sulfur-containing compounds (vscs) play an important role in wine aroma conferring at high concentrations unpleasant odors but also participating positively at low concentration. a large number of vscs are formed at different stages of winemaking and storage. to monitor this phenomenon, a hs-spme-gc-ms/ms method has been developed. the method is proposed in order to quantify 27 different sulfur-containing compounds. spme extraction was performed using a carboxen-polydimethylsiloxane (car-pdms) fiber, which resulted the most effective fiber coating. time and temperature extraction conditions were optimized using response surface methodology. the selectivity and sensitivity of the method were considerably increased using triple-quadrupole in multiple reaction monitoring (mrm) mode. the number of vscs analyzed in a single run was higher than in any other method previously reported using single-quadrupole ms or other detectors. the overall process was successfully applied to identify and quantify sulfur compounds both in white and red wines.