Alfred Donaubauer

This article describes the development of a routine method to analyse epoxidized soybean oil (ESBO) in baby food...

This article describes the development of a routine method to analyse epoxidized soybean oil (ESBO) in baby food based on a previous method devised by Castle et al. The aim was to simplify the work-up procedure to reduce the strain on the analytical equipment. The extraction procedure was miniaturized to improve handling, reduce the resources needed and simplify the method. After derivatization, the extracts were cleaned using gel permeation chromatography (GPC). A modified gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC–MS) method using pulsed splitless injection was developed to determine the analyte. For quality control (QC), peak area ratios (PARs) were calculated and evaluated in terms of functionality under routine conditions. The method was validated according to EU regulations at a level of 20 ppm and showed high reproducibility. The miniaturized method proved to be applicable to all investigated baby food matrices and demonstrated the benefits of a GPC clean-up step to reduce strain on the..