The volatile compounds changes of Malus asiatica Nakai under different drying methods

The volatile compounds variation of Malus asiatica Nakai under different drying methods is still blank now. In this paper, drying methods of freeze drying (FD), microwave vacuum drying (MVD), microwave freeze drying (MFD), and hot air drying (HAD) were employed to dry fresh M. asiatica Nakai, headspace-gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry was adopted to identify volatile compounds in M. asiatica Nakai, principal component analysis (PCA) and the Euclidean distance were used to distinguish the samples. Results showed that 81 peaks were detected, 70 volatile compounds were identified, drying makes obvious differences of volatile compounds in M. asiatica Nakai, and drying methods with microwave heating makes most of volatile compounds vanished. Compared to MFD and MVD, FD and HAD were more appropriate to be adopted to dry M. asiatica Nakai due to volatile compounds reserved more in FD and HAD. The results could provide a scientific data basis to help future dried M. asiatica Nakai production.