OBJECTIVEAnalysis of the constituents of the essential oil extracted from the flowers of the Chrysanthemum morifolium processed by the microwave-airflow and the calefaction after steam process from the State Chrysanthemum GAP bases in Zhejiang Province and to provide scientific basis for quality control.

METHODThe essential oil was extracted by water-steam distillation and separated by GC capillary column chromatography. The components were quantitatively determined with normalization method, and identified by GC-MS.

RESULTFrom the microwave-airflow dried sample and the calefactively dried sample after steam process, 119 and 175 components were detected, among them fifty and fifty-five components were identified, which were composed of 67.89% and 63.64% of the total essential oil, respectively.

CONCLUSIONThe yield of the essential oil extracted from the microwave-airflow dried sample was 0.40%, and that from the calefactively dried sample after steam process was 0. 19%. The former is 2.1 times higher than the latter. The components of the essential oil are similar and there are differences between the content of corresponding compounds in the two samples. The results showed that application of microwave-airflow combined drying technology remained original and essential constituents. The production benefit was improved greatly. The grade and quality of C. morifolium enhanced, and it's market selling price was increased compared to the traditional drying calefaction after steam process.