Validation of the liquid chromatography-comprehensive multidimensional gas chromatography-time-of-flight mass spectrometer/flame ionization detector platform for mineral oil analysis exploiting interlaboratory comparison data

Abstract

Mineral oils, classified into two main fractions, namely saturated (MOSH) and aromatic hydrocarbons (MOAH), originate from petroleum. Their determination in food is challenging due to the difficulty of isolating them from the matrix and the presence of natural interferences, leading to low reproducibility of the results among different laboratories. Therefore, standardized procedures are highly required to minimize the uncertainty caused by various sources (e.g., integration, interference removal, etc.). However, at present, a few sample preparation procedures have been standardized, while the analytical determination is mainly performed using the hyphenated liquid-gas chromatographic technique coupled with a flame ionization detector (LC-GC-FID). However, LC-GC-FID is still not enough for confirmatory purposes, for which the use of comprehensive 2D GC (GC × GC) has been suggested. Recently, the use of a fully integrated platform for routine and confirmatory purposes has been proposed by Bauwens and co-workers (2022), namely LC-GC × GC-time-of-flight mass spectrometer (ToFMS)/FID.