Volatile Components of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L:) Seed

Headspace material was collected from floured Cicer arietinum seed and analyzed by capillary GC-mass spectrometry. Structural assignment was achieved for 132 components of the chickpea volatiles by mass spectra, by cochromatography, and through their Kovats indices. All the substances, with two exceptions, present in chickpea headspace in an amount above 0.5% of the total volatiles could be identified. Besides aliphatic hydrocarbons, the dominant chemical classes in the chickpea volatiles were terpenoids (35%) and alcohols (18%). With the sampling method applied for this analysis, a total of 2.4 μg of volatiles was collected from 1.5 L of headspace volume. The main individual component was a-pinene (≈0.3 μg).