title: Comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography for characterizing mineral oils in foods and distinguishing them from synthetic hydrocarbons.
abstract: Many foods are contaminated by hydrocarbons of mineral oil or synthetic origin. High performance liquid chromatography on-line coupled with gas chromatography and flame ionization detection (HPLC-GC-FID) is a powerful tool for the quantitative determination, but it would often be desirable to obtain more information about the type of hydrocarbons in order to identify the source of the contamination and specify pertinent legislation. Comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography (GC×GC) is shown to produce plots distinguishing mineral oil saturated hydrocarbons (MOSH) from polymer oligomeric saturated hydrocarbons (POSH) and characterizing the degree of raffination of a mineral oil. The first dimension separation occurred on a phenyl methyl polysiloxane, the second on a dimethyl polysiloxane. Mass spectrometry (MS) was used for identification, FID for quantitative determination. This shows the substantial advances in chromatography to characterize complex hydrocarbon mixtures even as contaminants in food.
authors.affiliation: Official Food Control Authority of the Canton of Zürich, PO Box, CH-8032 Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Maurus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Biedermann
authors.affiliation: Official Food Control Authority of the Canton of Zürich, PO Box, CH-8032 Zurich, Switzerland. Electronic address: koni@grob.org.
authors.forename: Koni
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Grob
mesh_terms: D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; D005410:Flame Ionization / Q000379:methods*; D005506:Food Contamination / Q000032:analysis*; D006838:Hydrocarbons / Q000032:analysis; D013058:Mass Spectrometry; D008899:Mineral Oil / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D006838:Hydrocarbons; D008899:Mineral Oil
keywords: GC×GC; Mineral oil aromatic hydrocarbons (MOAH); Mineral oil saturated hydrocarbons (MOSH); On-line HPLC–GC; Polymer oligomeric saturated hydrocarbons (POSH)