Chemical profiling of liposoluble liquid smokes obtained from Eucalyptus wood tar: confirmation of absence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons

Abstract

ABSTRACT Liposoluble liquid smoke (LS) preparations are versatile food additives used worldwide. The objective of the present work was to characterise the chemical composition of four types of industrial liposoluble LS currently used as the basis for the production of commercial smoke flavourings. The LS was obtained by vacuum fractional distillation from a raw pyrolysis oil (raw LS) obtained primarily from eucalyptus wood tar. The raw LS and the four LS flavourings obtained therefrom were analysed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) to characterise the main groups of components. Additional analyses were carried out to evaluate the occurrence of PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) in the samples, as the producer claimed that these samples are free of PAHs. The main chemical components characterised in the LS were organic acids, aldehydes, esters, furans, pyrans and phenols, with phenolic compounds being the major chemical group. For the four LS tested samples, no PAHs could be detected with the method employed, which could indicate that the industrial processing was able to effectively remove this harmful class of compounds, or at least decrease its concentrations to levels below the limits of detection of the method of analysis.