The Analysis of Chlorinated Dioxins, Difurans, and Polychlorinated Biphenyls in Edible Oils

The dioxin family consists of 210 compounds, of which 17 contain the 2,3,7,8 pattern of chlorination. These 2,3,7,8 containing compounds are of extreme human health concern due to their high level of toxicity. Similarly, 12 of the 209 polychlorinated biphenyls have also been identified as human toxins. For this reason, the U.S. FDA and EU have established strict regulations for the monitoring of food products for human consumption, in particular edible oils.

Manual extractions of oils can be a time consuming procedure often delaying lab turnaround times. By automating the process with the EconoPrep®, food oil samples can be reliably processed with routine 24 h turnaround times.

Table I: Mean recoveries and deviations for labeled compounds; concentration of blank

Instrumentation

• FMS, Inc. EconoPrep®

• FMS, Inc. SuperVap® Concentrator

• Thermo Trace Ultra GC with DFS HRMS

• Restek Dioxin 2, 60 m GC column

Procedure

Sample Prep

• Various oil matrices obtained (lard, olive oil, corn oil, cod oil, red palm oil, unrefined pumpkin oil, unrefined vegetable oil)

• Aliquots of 5 g samples are spiked with ¹³C labeled surrogate standards

EconoPrep

• Automated Multi Column Sample Cleanup

SuperVap

• Automatic Direct-to-Vial Concentration

Conclusions

Analysis of the six matrices processed yielded acceptable recoveries for all analytes with standard deviations below 20%. Analysis of an n-hexane blank sample resulted in no detectable target analytes measured within the calibration range of each respective compound.

With a total processing time of less than 2.5 h, the FMS EconoPrep® and SuperVap® Concentrator delivers an efficient, totally automated sample prep process for edible oils.

FMS, Inc.
580 Pleasant Street, Watertown, MA 02472
tel. (617) 393-2396, fax (617) 393-0194
Website: www.fmsenvironmental.com