Food aroma compounds by Capillary Electrophoresis

The concept of aroma includes all the volatile substances responsible for odors, in terms of key odorants, but also of off-flavors, developed during food processing and storage, and derived from degradation, oxidation or fermentation reactions. The potential of Capillary Electrophoresis (CE) in food quality, safety, and foodomics for a large variety of food-related molecules is well known. Regarding aroma compounds, above the analytical techniques of election, i.e. gas chromatography and olfactometry, CE represents an interesting tool to give structure elucidation and quantitative data of some aroma substances. This chapter is sub-divided into two parts: a description of CE instrumentation, theoretical principles, and CE-modes are reported in the first one, while applications for the analysis of food aroma compounds and of their precursors are reported in the second one. Applications are based on the type of chemical reaction (nonenzymatic or enzymatic) and the chemical structure of the related reaction products.