The
bark of trees contains an interesting mixture of bioactive
compounds, or so-called extractives. The use of supercritical carbon
dioxide (sc-CO2) eliminates both the need for organic solvents
as extractants and the danger that solvent traces might compromise
the purity of the extracts. Unfortunately, the complexity and natural
variability of extracts’ composition render any utilization
attempts rather challenging. Thus, in order to implement exploitation
concepts in a meaningful way, appropriate analytical techniques for
characterizing extracts must be available beforehand. In our work,
we explored gas chromatography coupled to both mass spectrometry and
a flame ionization detector (GC-MS/FID), in combination with ultraperformance
convergence chromatography and quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry
(UPC2-QTof-MS), for the characterization of bark extracts
from pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) in both qualitative
and quantitative terms. Although the conventional GC-MS/FID approach
is a robust method for overall quantification of extractives, it fails
to provide ample information about native sterol esters and triglycerides.
These data are provided by a new, complementary analytical technique
based on supercritical carbon dioxide, as the chromatographic eluant,
coupled to a high-resolution mass spectrometer. The combination of
both techniques and the use of sc-CO2 as both an extraction
solvent and eluant made this combined tool especially powerful. The
most prominent triglycerides in the extract were identified qualitatively
and quantitatively, and the dominating sterol esters were identified
qualitatively, by UPC2-QTof-MS.