Abstract: This work reports the effect of heat processing treatments on the characteristic flavor components of Chlamys nobilis adductor muscle as determined using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and headspace solid phase micro extraction coupled to GC-MS (HS-SPME-GC-MS), in comparison with fresh and vacuum freeze dried samples. The results showed that the contents of crude protein and crude fat in scallops were little affected by various processing treatments. Compared with fresh C. nobilis adductor muscle, the contents of AMP, betain and Cl- and Na+ were increased significantly (P < 0.05) and the contents of free amino acids, K+, nucleotides and related compounds (except AMP), succinic acid and PO43- were decreased significantly (P < 0.05) after heat processing treatments. However, vacuum freeze drying caused less significant changes. A total of 63, 34 and 64 volatile compounds were identified from heat processed, fresh and vacuum freeze-dried scallops, respectively. The major volatile compounds in three scallops were alcohols, acids and hydrocarbons, and aldehyde, which accounted for 26.20%, 30.84%, 29.38%, and 16.78% of the total volatile compounds, respectively. The major odors of heat processing treatments scallops were confirmed as fishy, honey like, fruity, fatty and greasy, trimethyl amine, 1-octen-3-ol, (2Z)-2-penten-1-ol, 1-penten-3-ol, 1-pentanol, nonanal, undecanal, hexanal, heptaldehyde, benzaldehyde, octanal, decanal and 3-octanone were found to be involved in the formation of characteristic flavor components.

Key words: Chlamys nobilis adductor muscle, vacuum freeze-drying, heat processing treatments, gas chromatography-masss pectrometry (GC-MS), characteristic flavor components