The 11th International Symposium on ‘Recent Advances in Food Analysis’ (RAFA) took place from 5th to 8th November 2024 in Prague/Czech Republic. More than 700 participants from science, regulatory bodies and industry discussed current approaches and developments in the determination and evaluation of desirable and undesirable substances in food. Laboratory Lommatzsch und Säger (LLS) presented its current strategies and research results in a lecture and two scientific posters.
In the lecture ‘Analytical strategies to determine 3-7 ring MOAH in food & FCM: DACC-HPLC-GC and GCxGC’, Dr. Martin Lommatzsch presented the state-of-the-art approaches for distinguishing aromatic hydrocarbons according to the number of their ring systems. According to the current EFSA assessment on the evaluation of mineral oil aromatic hydrocarbons, in particular the 3-7 ring MOAH are of concern. Both analytical strategies presented, GCxGC-MS/FID and extended DACC-HPLC-GC-FID, respectively, are suitable for characterising the MOAH fraction in accordance with EFSA requirements. Further information can be found in our services sections for subgroup characterisation using GCxGC and MOAH separation using LC-LC-GC-FID.
The topic of MOAH separation by number of aromatic rings using online coupled DACC-HPLC-GC-FID developed by LLS was also presented on the poster ‘Advanced separation of mineral oil aromatic hydrocarbons by number of aromatic rings using donor-acceptor-complex chromatography to extend on-line coupled liquid chromatography-gas chromatography’. With the DACC technique, existing HPLC-GC-FID routine systems can be easily extended to analyse the MOAH fraction for toxicologically relevant 3-7 ring aromatics in the case of positive results. LLS published the corresponding method in the Journal of Chromatography A in January 2024 (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chroma.2023.464600).
The second poster ‘Migration of Cyclic Siloxane Oligomers into Food - Determination of D4 to D25 via online coupled HPLC-GC-FID’ deals with the results of current research project on the characterisation of silicone FCM. In particular, the unspecific method for the conformity assessment of silicone according to VOC in accordance with BfR Recommendation XV. was critically discussed. Furthermore, the still enormous migration of cyclic siloxane oligomers into fatty foods was analysed. LLS successfully developed analytical methods for the determination of cyclic siloxanes from D4 to D25 and successfully published an alternative concept for the conformity assessment of silicone in the scientific journal Talanta (DOI: 10.1016/j.talanta.2024.127145).
