Abstract: Water distillation, supercritical and subcritical methods were used to extract volatile oils from fresh ginger and dried ginger, and the yield and chemical composition of volatile oil from ginger extracted by several methods were analyzed and evaluated by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The procedure allowed the identification of 39 components among three methods, representing 94.5% to 99.9% of the total oil extracted. Among them, the contents of phellandene, terpene, zingiberene, and citral extracted by water distillation were higher, accounting for 60%~70%, while the contents of curcumene, zingiberene, farnesene, and sesquipene extracted from the supercritical and subcritical methods were higher, accounting for up to 80%~90%. The chemical components of volatile oil extracted from Zhangliang ginger by different methods were compared for the first time, and it was determined that there were many more components and main components extracted by water distillation, but the yield of volatile oil was lower, and the content was also significantly different from supercritical and subcritical extraction. The volatile oil of ginger extracted with subcritical method had high yield, simple process and stable quality. However, it remains to be further research whether the differential components can lead to differences in pharmacological effects.

Key words: Zhangliang ginger, water distillation extraction, supercritical fluid extraction, subcritical extraction, GC-MS