Head space plant volatile organic compounds – recent advancement

Each plants represents an amazing storehouse of diverse phytochemicals and among the diversity of phytochemicals, Plant Volatile Organic Compounds (PVOCs) are significant with respect to ecological and economic importance. PVOCs, responsible for the aroma of plants, are typically small molecules with low boiling point and high vapor pressure at ambient temperature. Several techniques such as enfleurage, solvent extraction, expression and super critical fluid extraction are applied for PVOCs extraction, of which the essential oils isolated through hydrodistillation is the most widely adopted technology. Head space PVOCs are the unconjugated PVOCs from flowers, fruits and other vegetative tissues that cross the cell membranes naturally and disperse in the air at ambient temperature. Terpenoids, phenolics and fatty acid derivatives are the major constituents of HS-PVOCs. Gas Liquid Chromatography (GLC) coupled with Mass Spectrometry (MS) is the best single tool for PVOCs analysis. The scent of flowers and the aroma of fruits are due to the HS-PVOCs. The HS-PVOCs are responsible for a variety of biological and pharmacological activities of plants, and are widely utilized in various industrial sectors such as perfumery, cosmetics, medicines, preservatives, nutraceuticals, flavours and food additives. HS-PVOCs are also investigated intensively with respect to chemical ecology, atmospheric chemistry, integrated pest management, defence against herbivores, detection of disease infestation, biological control mechanisms, food quality, chemotaxonomy, chemogenomics and metabolomics. Recent developments in HS-PVOCs include a shift from the static headspace GC-MS analysis toward faster, more sensitive, and portable real-time emission kinetics and nanomaterial sensor-based AI platforms. The advancements in HS-PVOCs analyses have opened exciting opportunities in HS-PVOCs sector.

K. B. Rameshkumar took his M.Sc Chemistry degree from St. Thomas College, Thrissur in 1997 and joined Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute (JNTBGRI), Thiruvananthapuram in 1998 as a scientific staff. He took his Ph.D in Chemistry in the topic, ‘Phytochemical investigation of some Indian medicinal plants’from the University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram in 2008. The area of his specialization is Phytochemistry and the current interests are isolation and structure elucidation of phytochemicals, hyphenated analytical techniques, especially GC-MS and LC-MS, chemistry of essential oils and fixed oils, chemotaxonomy, chemical ecology, fragrance creation and herbal technology start-ups. In the tenure of 28 years of research, he had worked on the phytochemistry of several hitherto uninvestigated endemic plants of the Western Ghats region and identified new compounds and new natural sources of aromatic and bioactive compounds, in addition to new plant species. He had received the prestigious Kerala Academy of Sciences Fellowship (FAS), Young Scientist award by the Govt. of Kerala, K.S. Manilal Award by the Indian Association for Angiosperm Taxonomy, and his students had bagged around 30 best presentation awards in various seminars. He had visited Sultan Quaboos University, Muscat, Oman in 2011, Malaysia during 2013, 2015, 2018 and 2023, Sri Lanka in 2018 and 2025, Singapore in 2024, 2025 and 2026, Bosnia 2025 and Thailand 2026. He had organized around 70 training programmes, workshops and seminars in phytochemistry related fields, and delivered around 130 invited lectures including International Seminars abroad. He was the organizing secretary of the International Seminar on Phytochemistry from 2015 onwards. He had 68 research papers with a total impact factor >120, and 2 books on Phytochemistry of Garcinia species, and Cyperaceae species, in addition to more than 170 abstracts in seminar proceedings, 28 general articles and has an H index of 24. He had produced 7 Ph.Ds and supervised more than 60 M.Sc dissertation students. He is the Executive Council Member, Society for Ethnobotanists, Kerala Chapter, and Kerala Academy of Sciences, Thiruvananthapuram, and the editorial board member of Journal of Natural Medicines. He was a member of the Board of Studies in Chemistry, Mar Ivanios College, Thiruvananthapuram, Member, Research Advisory Council, Dale View College of Pharmacy, Thiruvananthapuram, and Member, Research Advisory Committee, Arya Vaidya Sala, Kottakkal. He was the General Secretary of Kerala Academy of Sciences, a premier professional body of Scientists and Academicians in Kerala, from 2018 to 2024. He is the Scientist-in Charge of the Central Instrumentation Facility at JNTBGRI, and currently holding the position of Senior Principal Scientist and Head of the Division, Phytochemistry and Phytopharmacology Division, KSCSTE-JNTBGRI, Thiruvananthapuram.