Essential oils are the fragrant essences of plants in their purest, most concentrated state, most of which are primarily composed of terpenes and their oxygenated derivatives. These oils find application mainly in the flavor and fragrance industry, pharmaceutical industry, and in aromatherapy.

The characterization of the oils through chemical analysis is a mandatory step in the production chain, to be carried out by both researchers and quality control labs.

Conventional GC methods generally require 30-60 minutes to perform an overall analytical cycle.  This application note reports an alternative method based on the UltraFast technology implemented on the TRACE GC Ultra^TM, which operates with 5m long columns and heating rates of hundreds of degrees per minute. The outcome is up to a 40-fold reduction in the analysis time and high performance in repeatability and accuracy as usually requested in this field.