Flavor Fragrance industry

Top 10 Flavor Fragrance Industry Leaders Estimated Sales Volume, Leffingwell Associates, 2003, URL www.leffingwell. Com. 

Diketones contain two carbonyl groups and are named by adding the suffix -dione to the parent hydrocarbon, and by indicating the position of the carbonyl groups using the smallest numbers possible. Diketones are generally used as specialty chemical intermediates in the pharmaceutical, flavor, fragrance, and dye industries. 

Essential Oils. Essential oils are produced by distillation of flowers, leaves, stems, wood, herbs, roots, etc. Distillations can be done directly or with steam. The technique used depends mosdy on the desired constituents of the starting material. Particular care must be taken in such operations so that undesired odors are not introduced as a result of pyrolytic reactions. This is a unique aspect of distillation processing in the flavor and fragrance industry. In some cases, essential oils are obtained by direct expression of certain fmits, particular of the citms family. These materials maybe used as such or as distillation fractions from them (see Oils, essential). 

Another analysis handled effectively by use of gc/ir/ms is essential oil characterization which is of interest to the foods, flavors, and fragrances industries (see Oils essential). Even very minor components in these complex mixtures can affect taste and aroma. Figure 4 shows the TRC and TIC for Russian corriander oil which is used extensively in seasonings and perfumes (15). The ir and ms are serially configured. Spectra can be obtained from even the very minor gc peaks representing nanogram quantities in the it flow cell. 

Capillary gc/ms, hplc, nmr, ir, and uv are all analytical methods used by the terpene chemist with a good Hbrary of reference spectra, capillary gc/ms is probably the most important method used in dealing with the more volatile terpenes used in the davor and fragrance industry (see Flavors and spices). The physical properties of density, refractive index, boiling point, melting point of derivatives, and specific rotation are used less frequendy but are important in defining product specifications. 

Dimerization of Isoprene. Isoprene is becoming an increasingly important raw material for the production of terpenes. For example, myrcene (7) can be produced by the dimerization of isoprene (2-methyl-1,3-butadiene) (42—44) and myrcene is very useful for synthesizing a number of oxygenated terpenes important in the flavor and fragrance industry. 

In flavor formulations, vanillin is used widely either as a sweetener or as a flavor enhancer, not only in imitation vanilla flavor, but also in butter, chocolate, and aU. types of fmit flavors, root beer, cream soda, etc. It is widely acceptable at different concentrations 50—1000 ppm is quite normal in these types of finished products. Concentrations up to 20,000 ppm, ie, one part in fifty parts of finished goods, are also used for direct consumption such as toppings and icings. Ice cream and chocolate are among the largest outlets for vanillin in the food and confectionery industries, and their consumption is many times greater than that of the perfume and fragrance industry. 

In the 1990s hplc has become widely used in the flavor and fragrance industry to measure vanillin and other phenoHc compounds. Routine methods have been developed that are particularly adapted to thermosensitive products, such as vanillin and its derivative products, with elution gradient and uv detection at given wavelengths. Certain critical impurities can thus routinely be traced to very low (10 ppm) concentrations. 

Plants produce a vast array of terpenes, alkenes built in multiples of five carbon atoms. Many terpenes have characteristic fragrances. For example, the fresh odor of a pine forest is due to pinene, a ten-carbon molecule with a ring structure and one double bond. The fragrances of terpenes make them important in the flavor and fragrance industry. Limonene, another ten-carbon molecule with a ring and two double bonds, is the principal component of lemon oil. Geraniol, a chainlike molecule with two double bonds, is one of the molecules that is responsible for the fragrance of roses and is used in many perfumes. Many other terpenes have important medicinal properties. 

Besides their essential roles in nature, isoprenoids are of commercial importance in industry. Some isoprenoids have been used as flavors, fragrances, spices, and food additives, while many are used as pharmaceuticals to treat an array of human diseases, such as cancer (Taxol), malaria (artemisinin), and HIV (coumarins). In contrast to the huge market demand, isoprenoids are present only in low abundance in their host organisms. Thus, isolation of the required isoprenoids consumes a large quantity of natural resources. Furthermore, owing to their structural complexity, total chemical synthesis is often not commercially feasible. For these reasons, metabolic engineering may provide an alternative to produce these valuable isoprenoids [88,89]. 

The enantioselective hydrogenation of a,fj- or / ,y-unsaturated acid derivatives and ester substrates including itaconic acids, acrylic acid derivatives, buteno-lides, and dehydrojasmonates, is a practical and efficient methodology for accessing, amongst others, chiral acids, chiral a-hydroxy acids, chiral lactones and chiral amides. These are of particular importance across the pharmaceutical and the flavors and fragrances industries. 

Enantioselective heterogeneous catalytic reactions are of growing interest, as optically pure chiral compounds are of great importance in different areas like fine chemical, pharmaceutical, agrochemical, flavor, and fragrance industries. 

There is currently great interest in the flavor and fragrance industry in developing natural chiral chemicals from plant materials. The interest in natural chiral chemicals continues to grow for several reasons ... 

The biosynthesis of geosmin is of interest because an enhanced understanding of the pathways and enzymes involved may support the development of effective off-flavor control strategies. Increased biochemical information could also enhance the use of biochemical systems to produce large amounts of geosmin for the flavor and fragrance industries, which may be interested in this compound to provide a desirable earthy note to certain products (88). Currently, difficulties associated with the synthesis of the three chiral carbons renders the chemical synthesis of geosmin extremely difficult (88). 

Naturally occurring fatty alcohols used in the fragrance industry are produced principally by reduction of the methyl esters of the corresponding carboxylic acids, which are obtained by transesterification of natural fats and oils with methanol. Industrial reduction processes include catalytic hydrogenation in the presence of copper-chromium oxide catalysts (Adkins catalysts) and reduction with sodium (Bouveault—Blanc reduction). Unsaturated alcohols can also be prepared by the latter method. Numerous alcohols used in flavor compositions are, meantime, produced by biotechnological processes [11]. Alcohols are starting materials for aldehydes and esters. 

Currently, raw materials for the flavor and fragrance industry are obtained from more than 250 different plant species, but only a handful of products originate... 

The flavor and fragrance industry has expanded so much that the plants required to supply the raw materials are now grown on a very large scale. Examples are the peppermint and spearmint plantations in the United States, the lavandin plantations in southern France and the cornmint plantations in China and India. 

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