Application Notes: Food and Beverage

The easy to use, new LipiFiltr® push-through purification cartridge was designed to remove lipids from acetonitrile extracts. This application will outline the performance benefits achieved using the new LipiFiltr® cartridges in applications involving multiclass, multiresidue analysis for pesticides in complex, high fat samples.

In this study, a fast, sensitive, and selective multiresidue method has been developed by coupling QuEChERS sample preparation with LC–MS/MS. Using time-managed-MRM™ in the QSight® triple quadrupole mass spectrometer, the optimum dwell time can be generated automatically for MRM transitions based on the number of coeluting transitions, expected cycle time, retention time, and tolerance time window of the targeted analytes. Such method automation results in improved data quality and better sensitivity, accuracy, and reproducibility, as demonstrated in this study by the results of 213 pesticide residues analyzed in grape samples.

The building blocks of peptides and proteins, amino acids, are present in animals, humans, and plants. The analysis of amino acids is of essential significance in several areas including food science, clinical diagnostics, and pharmaceutical products research. Classical liquid chromatography (LC) determination of amino acids is performed with sample pretreatment including pre-column as well as post-column derivatization to improve or enable spectroscopic detection.

A sensitive determination method with automated solid‑phase extraction (SPE) is presented and the recovery rates are compared with manual extraction. The automated extraction was developed with the SPE robot FREESTYLETM SPE module (LCTech GmbH). According to the European Regulation (EC) No 470/2009, CHROMABOND® HLB was applied for SPE (1). A high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC–MS/MS) method with the biphenyl phase NUCLEODUR® π2 was used for the subsequent analysis.

An isocratic HPLC method showing the separation of an artificial sweetener in a cola beverage. The chromatogram shows the advantage of using 230nm instead of 254nm for improved detection but minimizing the baseline interferences.

With the evolving market and demand for matrix-optimized transitions, the Agilent P&EP 4.0 Analyzer includes the addition of 7,800 matrix-optimized transitions to provide customers with their optimal pesticides analysis.

195 pesticides were chosen to evaluate both the traditional time segment (TS) acquisition and dMRM acquisition structures. The use of dMRM provides the capability to better tackle large multi-analyte analysis.

A variety of alcoholic beverages purchased within the UK were analyzed for the presence of Ethylcarbamate. A 1 µL injection of these alcoholic beverages were analyzed on an Ellutia 200 GC followed by detection on an Ellutia 820 TEA working in nitrogen detection mode. This mode of analysis detects nitrogen containing compounds within a sample. The Ellutia 810/820 systems are able to analyse various nitro or nitroso compounds, utilizing the selectivity available through nitrogen or nitroso modes. Nitrogen mode utilizes the catalytic pyrolyzer tube, oxygen reactor, and higher temperatures to detect nitrogen compounds. Results for various alcoholic beverages are shown in Figure 3. The samples were found to have various low levels of ethylcarbamate, the system was optimized through levels of oxygen input and EHT sensitivity. The samples were then analyzed adopting a standard addition approach.