Premium
Improvement of mineral oil saturated and aromatic hydrocarbons determination in edible oil by liquid–liquid–gas chromatography with dual detection
Author(s) -
Zoccali Mariosimone,
Barp Laura,
Beccaria Marco,
Sciarrone Danilo,
Purcaro Giorgia,
Mondello Luigi
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
journal of separation science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.72
H-Index - 102
eISSN - 1615-9314
pISSN - 1615-9306
DOI - 10.1002/jssc.201501247
Subject(s) - chemistry , gas chromatography , chromatography , mineral oil , flame ionization detector , hydrocarbon , mass spectrometry , polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon , contamination , environmental chemistry , organic chemistry , ecology , biology
Mineral oils, which are mainly composed of saturated hydrocarbons and aromatic hydrocarbons, are widespread food contaminants. Liquid chromatography coupled to gas chromatography with flame ionization detection represents the method of choice to determine these two families. However, despite the high selectivity of this technique, the presence of olefins (particularly squalene and its isomers) in some samples as in olive oils, does not allow the correct quantification of the mineral oil aromatic hydrocarbons fraction, requiring additional off‐line tools to eliminate them. In the present research, a novel on‐line liquid chromatography coupled to gas chromatography method is described for the determination of hydrocarbon contamination in edible oils. Two different liquid chromatography columns, namely a silica one (to retain the bulk of the matrix) and a silver‐ion one (which better retains the olefins), were coupled in series to obtain the mineral oil aromatic hydrocarbons hump free of interfering peaks. Furthermore, the use of a simultaneous dual detection, flame ionization detector and triple quadrupole mass spectrometer allowed us not only to quantify the mineral oil contamination, but also to evaluate the presence of specific markers (i.e. hopanes) to confirm the petrogenic origin of the contamination.