Chemical Composition of the Fragrance of the Flower of “Sansevieria Trifasciata Laurenti” by SPME / GC-MS: Perfume Applications

The fragrance industry is big business, very big business. It includes much more than retail sales of fragrances. Related industries such as chemical companies supply the chemicals the fragrances are made from. Most fragrance chemicals are synthesized from petroleum products, plant or animal sources. Some companies formulate fragrances and flavors for other companies. Marketing and advertising are used to create and promote the image of a fragrance. Puerto Rico has a variety of tropical flowers that can be a great source of new fragrances for the perfume industry. In order to explore the possibility of stated a new industry; a pioneer project was started in the Chemistry Department of the University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez Campus. The plant genus Sansevieria is explored for this purpose, specially the flower of the plant, ?Sansevieria Trifasciata Laurenti?. The flower scent is so unique that it is difficult to put into words. The analytical method used to determine the chemical composition of the flower fragrance was solid phase micro-extraction (SPME) and gas chromatography using a mass spectrometry detector (GC/MS). The chemical composition of the Sansevieria Trifasciata Laurenti flower fragrance include around 69 compounds, several, esters, alcohol and aldehydes. Around 65% of all the compounds were identify with 80 to 97% match quality. In comparison with the fragrances flowers of Sansevieria Trifasciata and Sansevieria Cylindric the results shows that the chemical composition are very different.