GC determination of synthetic hydrocarbon‐based thermal heating fluid in vegetable oils

Abstract

AbstractA combination of alumina column chromatography and GC procedures was developed for the determination of synthetic hydrocarbon‐based thermal heating fluid (trademarked as Therminol 55™) in vegetable oils. In each run, 3 g of sample solution was loaded onto the alumina (50 g) column and was eluted with 200 mL hexane. The eluate was then concentrated to 1 mL with the aid of a nitrogen stream prior to GC analysis. The GC chromatogram of the thermal heating fluid was characterized by the presence of a bell‐shaped hump that could not be resolved into individual peaks. The lowest detection limit based on various spiked palm olein samples was 20 μg/g. The CV obtained were 6.5–8.9% for the intra‐day study and 8.1–9.7% for the inter‐day study. Overall recoveries of these samples ranged from 68.0 to 85.7% and the method was found to be good enough for quality control purposes.