Abstract: Ginger oleoresin was extracted from Zingiber officinale Rosc.var. Laiwudajiang by the technique of supercritical fluid extraction. Gas chromatography and mass spectrometry technique were employed to analyze the ginger oleoresin. This analysis resulted in the detection of 3 hitherto unknown natural compounds, 24 compounds previously reported as pungent compounds and 50 volatile compounds from ginger. The volatile compounds were mainly α-zingiberene (22.29%), β-sesquiphellandrene (8.58%), α-farnesene (3.93%), β-bisabolene (3.87%), α-curcumene (2.63%), which were mostly consisted of sesquiterpene hydrocarbons. The pungent compounds of ginger were mainly 6-gingerol (9.38%), 6-shogaol (7.59%), zingerone (9.24%) produced by the thermal degradation of gingerols or shogaols. The mass spectral fragmentation patterns for the three new compounds (6-isogingerol, (Z)-10-isoshogaol, (E)-10-isoshogaol) are discussed and interpreted.

Key words: component analysis , gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), ginger oleoresin, supercritical fluid extraction (SFE)