Identification of volatile alcoholic compound in rosewater by GC-MS analysis: A method to differentiate original and artificial samples

In this study, an attempt was made to identify the differences between the two rosewater samples by identifying the chemical volatile compounds present in the original and artificial rosewater using GC and GC-MS. Then, to determine the authenticity of the studied rosewater samples, the amount of ethanol and methanol in the original and artificial samples was measured by GC-FID. Differences between phenyl ethyl alcohol, citronellol, geraniol, and citronellol/geraniol ratio of original, artificial samples and 10 industrial samples were tested by the current method. The results showed that the amount of phenyl ethyl alcohol in the artificial samples were much lower than the original sample (p ≤ 0.05). The amount of citronellol in both samples was equal and did not have a statistically significant difference (p > 0.05). The geraniol content in the artificial samples was higher than the original sample while the citronellol / geraniol ratio showed a very low value in comparison to the original sample and other industrial samples. By examining the number of alcoholic compounds in rosewater, it was found that the original rosewater contained ethanol and methanol but no propylene glycol. By contrast, ethanol and methanol were not observed in the artificial samples, but the presence of propylene glycol alcohol. In addition to ethanol and methanol, some of the propylene glycols were observed in both samples. Consequently, this research showed that compounds such as ethanol, methanol, phenyl ethyl alcohol, geraniol, and citronellol/geraniol ratio can be used as markers in order to determine the originality of rosewater samples.