Potential of nuclear magnetic resonance for the determination of organochlorine in edible oils

Abstract

Chloride contaminants are the culprit for the formation of harmful compounds such as the 3-monochloropropane-1,2-diol esters (3-MCPDE) and 2-monochlororpropane-1,3-diol esters (2-MCPDE) during edible oil processing. Understanding the source of these chloride’s donor is important for steps to be taken to mitigate the formation of undesirable chloropropanols in refined edible oils. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) was used to differentiate between the inorganic chloride and organochlorine present in crude palm oil, palm superolein, refined olive oil and refined sunflower oil. A quantitative NMR (qNMR) method was developed to analyse the amount of organochlorine present in the aforementioned edible oils. Excellent regression coefficient (R ≥ 0.9995) and LOQ (0.45 ppm) showed that the method is linear and feasible. Recoveries of the method spanned between 90 % and 94 % for the four types of oils analysed. This showed the potential of qNMR for the determination of organochlorine in edible oils.