Arena A, Zoccali M, Bonaccorsi I, Mondello M, Tranchida PQ, Mondello L. Determination of mineral oil hydrocarbon contamination in Citrus essential oils by using on-line liquid-gas chromatography: critical aspects.
Anal Bioanal Chem 2024;
416:801-808. [PMID:
37505233 DOI:
10.1007/s00216-023-04873-7]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/05/2023] [Revised: 07/13/2023] [Accepted: 07/18/2023] [Indexed: 07/29/2023]
Abstract
The present manuscript reports and discusses critical issues related to the determination of mineral oil hydrocarbon contamination in Citrus essential oils (EOs); an on-line liquid-gas chromatography system equipped with a Y-interface was used (with no additional off-line step for pre-concentration). In total, eighteen samples were analyzed, specifically eleven cold-pressed (CP) and seven distilled EOs. With regard to the CP EOs, various degrees of mineral oil saturated hydrocarbon (MOSH) contamination were detected, ranging between 10.7 and 338.4 mg kg-1 (only one sample was MOSH-free); different MOSH sub-fractions were determined, with the > C25- ≤ C35 sub-fraction always present, with an average concentration of 74.5 mg kg-1. Based on the EO composition, different sample amounts were injected to avoid the overloading of the LC column and consequently the GC one, thus leading to different limits of quantification (LoQ), which were either 2 mg kg-1 (for bergamot EO) or 5 mg kg-1 (for all the other investigated samples). For all samples, the mineral oil aromatic hydrocarbon level was always lower than the LoQ.
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