Volatile Profile and Physico-Chemical Analysis of _Acacia_ Honey for Geographical Origin and Nutritional Value Determination  
[PERSON]  
1 Department of Agriculture and Scriulture, University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, Manastur st, 3-5, 400372 Cluj-Napoca, Romania; [EMAIL_ADDRESS] (N.M.M.); [PERSON]DRESS] (L.A.M.); [EMAIL_ADDRESS] (D.S.D)  
2 Department of Functional and Evolutionary Entomology, University of Liege, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, Passage des D'eortes, 2, 5030 Gembloux, Belgium; [EMAIL_ADDRESS] (F.F.); [EMAIL_ADDRESS] (E.H.); [EMAIL_ADDRESS] (K.B.N.)  
3 Life Science Institute, University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Cluj-Napoca, Manastur st, 3-5, 400372 Cluj-Napoca, Romania; [EMAIL_ADDRESS]  
4 Laboratory of Chemistry of Natural Molecules, University of Liege, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, Passage des D'eortes, 2, 5030 Gembloux, Belgium; [EMAIL_ADDRESS]  
5 Correspondence: [EMAIL_ADDRESS]; Tel.: +40-746027940554610044  
research groups and specialized laboratories have established a list of methods and parameters to be determined, for the correct classification of honey samples.  
Monofloral honey is characterized by a required percentage of specific pollen, different in every national standard, ranging between 10 and 20% (orange honey) to 70-90% for eucalyptus honey [10; 11; 12; 13]. Establishing the monoflorality of honey have also economic importance, because specific honey, with nectar and pollen belonging predominantly to a certain species, may have higher selling price and beekeepers have higher incomes obtained from its marketing.  
However, only pollen analysis may cause classification problems, due to the fact that certain plants are underrepresented in pollen (lavender, citrus) and additional analysis are needed to complement the uniflorality decision. These analysis may be physico-chemical [14; 15], spectrophotometric and chromatographic techniques for possible markers determination (sugars, phenols or volatiles) [9; 16; 17; 18; 19; 20; 21; 22].  
Honey aroma is given by volatile organic compounds coming from plant nectar, developed through different biosynthetic pathways, thus is closely related to botanical origin [20]. Additionally, some of the flavor constituents may come from the bees in the enzymatic process of transforming the nectar into honey [20].  
Different classes of volatile compounds are reported in honey, the main classes being: furans, alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, terpenes, nor-isoprenoids, acids and pyrene derivatives [9; 19; 20; 22].  
Having different landforms and a very rich flora, Romania have the possibility to produce many types of honey, from monofloral (acacia, linden, rape, sunflower, raspberry, heather, mint, etc.), to multifloral (mountain, meadow) and last but not least honeydew honey [5; 14; 23; 24; 25; 26; 21].  
Romanian honey volatiles were studied until now [27; 28; 21], but the comparative analysis of volatiles of the same type of declared honey, from different geographical origins of Romania, was not made until now. The main purpose of the present study was to assess the volatile composition on the creation of aroma present in acacia samples from different geographical regions of Romania, using solid phase micro-extraction; gas chromatography, mass spectrometry (SPME/GC/MS) technique.