Abstract:

The three Chinese cassia oil standards currently in utilization could not effectively distinguish the cinnamon oil prepared by the new method or old method, and caused most of the new method cassia oil to be unqualified products, which had not played a leading role in the development of the industry. In order to made three Chinese cassia oil standards more instructive in practice, it was recommended to further clarify the content range of the four characteristic components, namely trans-cinnamaldehyde, coumarin, cinnamyl acetate and trans-O-methoxy cinnamaldehyde. Based on the analysis and statistics of the data of these four characteristic components of Chinese cassia oil in 800 batches(350 batches of new method and 450 batches of old method), it was suggested that the content range was as follows: the four characteristic components in cassia oil of new method were >80.0%-88.0%, 0%-1.5%, 0%-1.0%, and 4.0%-8.5%, and the sum of the last three was 6.0%-12.0%. The four characteristic components in cassia oil of old method were 72.0%-80.0%, >1.5%-3.0%, >1.0%-5.0%, and >8.5%-13.0%, and the sum of the latter three was >12.0%-18.0%. In addition, the physicochemical indexs of relative density of cassia oil should be revised as follows: 1.040-1.052 for new method and >1.052-1.070 for old method.

Key words: Chinese cassia oil, characteristic components, relative density, standards, revision suggestion