Abstract
Highly purified mineral oils are used in several pharmaceutical, foods and cosmetics applications. A fast and simple method was developed for the analysis of the total level of residual mineral oil aromatic hydrocarbons (MOAH) in these oils and in the intermediate oils that were sampled during the purification process. The method is based on gas chromatography with vacuum ultraviolet detection (GC-VUV) and relies on the spectral differences between the aliphatic and aromatic compounds in the sample. Because the detector provides a good selectivity for aromatics, direct quantification of the MOAH content is possible without the need for a laborious preseparation of the mineral oil. The method was successfully applied for the direct analysis of the MOAH levels of 18 different mineral oil samples. The aromatics contents obtained by GC-VUV were similar to those obtained using two conventional methods (NPLC-GC-FID and SPE-GC-FID), with no statistically significant difference. The detector response was linear over the concentration range tested (0.5–20 mg/mL) and the repeatability (RSD value) was less than 8%, which is better than the typical values for the conventional methods (up to 15% RSD). The minimum MOAH level that can be determined with this method is approximately 0.13%, making the GC-VUV method sufficiently sensitive for the analysis of all but the highest purity mineral oils.
Highlights
Refined and purified mineral oil fractions are widely used for elaboration of consumer products such as foods and cosmetics
For mineral oil aromatic hydrocarbons (MOAH), which are basically alkylated aromatic compounds with one or more isolated or fused aromatic rings, the absorbance spectrum will consist of two regions, one adsorption band characteristic for the aromatic part, and a monotonously decreasing part originating from the aliphatic substituents
The method showed to be a good alternative for determining the aromatics content in mineral oil samples
Summary
Refined and purified mineral oil fractions are widely used for elaboration of consumer products such as foods and cosmetics. In addition to the deliberate use of these purified oils as ingredients for cosmetics or foods, mineral oil can find its way into consumer products as a contaminant, e.g. through migration from recycled packaging materials or from the environment [2]. These contaminants can contain up to 30% and sometimes even up to 50% of MOAH and their concentration in consumer products ranges from 10 to 100 mg/kg [3,4]. These methods would provide information on the composition of the MOAH fraction as this might affect both removal efficiency and toxicity of the MOAH [5]
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