we added 300 microlitre of BSTFA and pyridine (1:1) to 1 mg of plant extracts and incubated at 70 C for 30 minutes. then used this for gc-ms analysis but did not get good spectra. any suggestions...
First of all tell me whether the GC of your GCMS was equipped with TCD or EID / ECD. If it was with TCD you should get the results. However if it was with ECD / EID then you will not get a good result.
Lignans is the only compounds required derivatization with trimethylsilyl chloride to give results in GC mass. Others like flavonoids required methylation for the phenolic group. Volatile oils did not require derivatization so it depends on the compounds to be analysed by GC Ms