Application Notes: Food and Beverage

Grapefruit juice was analyzed by gradient UHPLC for naringin - a flavanoid that gives it its bitter taste. A ZORBAX Rapid Resolution HD (RRHD) StableBond-C18 2.1 x 150 mm, 1.8 µm column resolved over 60 peaks including naringin in 7 min, and was re-equilibrated in just 3 min by operating at a high flow rate (0.8 mL/min).

The analysis of melamine in milk and other food products became urgent when first the pet food, and later the milk scandal were discovered in the U.S. and China.

The Agilent 1290 Infinity LC has significant capabilities for a wide range of HPLC and UHPLC applications.

The stevia plant and its extracts have long been used as sweeteners in Asia and Latin America. Two steviol glycosides present in plant tissue, stevioside, and rebaudioside A, are largely responsible for the sweet flavor (1).

Greater peak capacity and resolution can be easily obtained for gradient analysis of complex samples by using sub-2 µm particles in longer column lengths.

Most recently formulated pesticides are smaller in molecular weight and designed to break down rapidly in the environment.

SPME-GC–MS with on-column injection can be successfully employed for flavour profiling of food samples. The on-column injector of the GC-2010 can be used for SPME without any modifications, only an external ring adapter was used to facilitate the injection. The data can be compared with sensorial data of food.

The QuEChERS method for pesticide analysis was first introduced by USDA scientists in 2003. The EN method 15662:2007 is a European variation to the QuEChERS method. The method uses acetonitrile extraction, followed by the salting out of water from the sample using anhydrous magnesium sulphate (MgSO4, NaCl and buffering citrate salts to induce liquid–liquid partitioning.

Corn stover is the above-ground portion of the plant minus the kernels and it accounts for a large percentage of the global supply of lignocelluosic biomass available as feedstock for fermentation systems used for biofuel production.

All plant foods are complex mixtures of chemicals including both nutrients and biologically active non-nutrients, referred to as phytochemicals. Soy is known for having high concentrations of several physiologically-active phytochemicals, including isoflavones, phytate (inositol hexaphosphate), saponins, phytosterols and protease inhibitors. The isoflavones are what makes soy unique.

Solid phase microextraction (SPME) was used to generate volatile and semivolatile compound profiles of raw materials used in the production of chocolate products.

The presence of both melamine and cyanuric acid in concentrations greater than 2 μg/mL results in the crystallization of the two compounds, forming the toxic, water-insoluble melamine cyanurate complex.

Due to their high toxicity and carcinogenicity, aflatoxins are of major concern for food producers, the food processing industry, and consumers.

High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) methods are commonly used for the analysis of caffeine in beverages (1–3).

Positively identify trace amounts of cannabinoids in a complex food matrix quickly, with minimal sample preparation and no chemical derivatization.

Flavanones are a type of flavonoids occurring widely in plants, either in the aglycone backbone form itself or as glycosides. Flavonones exist in unique forms depending on the type of fruit and can be used to indicate the type of fruit that is being analysed. The following application introduces examples of high-speed analysis of flavanones in citrus juice using the Shimadzu ultra fast LC system, prominence UFLC, and the photodiode array detector SPD-M20A, focusing on narirutin, naringin, neohesperidin and hesperitin.

The FDA has no objection to Rebaudioside A having a generally recognized as safe (GRAS) status as a sweetener for food and drink.1 Stevia sweeteners may contain other steviol glycosides as well, mainly Stevioside, Rebaudioside C and Dulcoside A. Because the FDA GRAS confirmation is only for the use of Rebaudioside A at 95% purity or above in food and beverages, stevia extracts must be highly purified and characterized prior to use.

The use of EVOLUTE CX mixed-mode columns provides high and consistent recoveries across a range of complex matrices, from biological fluids to milk products. The dual retention mechanism ensures that matrix components such as proteins, salts and phospholipids are removed, resulting in lower ion suppression and accurate analysis.

Based on the QuEChERS AOAC Official Method 2007.01, 16 pesticides were used for evaluating the performance of the Agilent's AOAC buffered extraction and SampliQ QuEChERS dispersive SPE kits for general fruits and vegetables.

The analysis of anions and cations is critical during quality control. In this example, all major ionic components in mineral water are identified and quantified in a single run, with no sample preparation or concentration step.

The screening of pesticides, mycotoxins, and veterinary drugs is of great importance in regulated environments such as food or feed analysis. Due to some of the limitations of traditional triple quadrupole approaches (for example, targeted analyte detection, limited number of compounds, and unidentified unknown compounds), there is currently a trend towards use of full-scan MS data for the analysis of residue samples. Current screening approaches mainly rely on the use of ToF instruments coupled to U-HPLC delivering mass accuracy (~5 ppm) at a maximum resolution of <15,000. This can produce inaccurate mass measurements due the presence of unresolved background matrix interferences. In this work we show a full-scan MS screening approach with the Thermo Scientific Exactive mass spectrometer, a novel single-stage Orbitrapâ„¢ MS capable of providing precise mass accuracies at resolutions of up to 100,000 without the need for internal mass calibration.

Since melamine and its metabolites are extremely polar compounds, they serve as very good candidates for HILIC chromatography. Simultaneous and fast determination and confirmation of melamine and cyanuric acid along with two other compounds using a novel amino bonded phase in HILIC mode coupled with a complete solutions approach is presented.

Melamine is an organic base and a trimer of cyanamide, with a 1,3,5-triazine skeleton. Melamine can react with formaldehyde to produce melamine resin, a very durable thermosetting plastic, and melamine foam, a polymeric cleaning product. Some end products made from melamine include countertops, dry erase boards, fabrics, glues, housewares, and flame retardants. Melamine is also one of the major components in Pigment Yellow 150, a colorant in inks and plastics.

An Agilent ZORBAX Rapid Resolution HT Eclipse Plus Phenyl-Hexyl column resolved many compounds from Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni plant extracts using an isocratic reversed phase method with UV and MS detection instead of a typical approach employing an amino column with a refractive index or other special detector. The Eclipse Plus Phenyl-Hexyl method's advantages include high peak capacity, isocratic mobile phase, low acetonitrile consumption, and MS compatibility.

The United States Food and Drug Administration (U.S. FDA) and the European Union (EU) have published regulations and provided guidance on the use of chemicals in food packaging materials. Tekmar provides method parameters for the HT3â„¢ Automated Headspace Analyzer for the determination of VOCs that may be contained in food contact packaging materials under various conditions. Temperature and mixing parameters were investigated to determine which VOCs may be released when subjected to these conditions.

Simulated Moving Bed technology (SMB) is a continuous chromatography technique widely used in the pharmaceutical/biotechnology industry. The continuous chromatographic separation of sodium sulphate (Na2 SO4) from a mixture of glucose and mannose was established by using the Orochem Zuccheroâ„¢ columns and the SMB technology. The main advantages of SMB over batch chromatography includes better yields, higher purity, and decreased solvent usage, which together make the SMB technology economically viable and ideal for desalting applications.

Based on the QuEChERS AOAC Official Method 2007.01, sixteen pesticides were used for evaluating the performance of the Agilent's AOAC Buffered Extraction and SampliQ QuEChERS Dispersive SPE kits for General Fruits and Vegetables. Apple was selected as the fruit matrix. The pesticides are from the "representative pesticides" list (1). A method working well for these representative pesticides should work equally well for the other pesticides that are routinely monitored in multi-class, multi-residue methods. The compounds are from nine different pesticide classes: including acidic, basic, neutral, base-sensitive, and acid-labile pesticides. The selected pesticides are suitable for LC–MS-MS analysis. The MRLs of these pesticides have been set at 10 ng/g or higher (2–4).

Since September 2008, 294 000 infants and young children suffered urinary problems as a result of the contamination of melamine in infant milk powder and were hospitalized. This hospitalization was required to treat the symptoms caused by the ingestion of melamine contaminated infant formula and related dairy products. Previously in 2007, pet food, animal feed wheat gluten and other protein-based foods were found to contain residues of melamine and its degradation product cyanuric acid.

GC–MS method is presented for the quantitative determination and confirmation of melamine residues in milk products. The milk sample was cleaned up using Agilent's SampliQ SCX SPE cartridges before derivatization. The derived extracts were analysed by GC–MS with EI in synchronous SIM/scan mode on a Agilent J&W DB-5ms Ultra Inert column.

Penicillins are regulated substances in food for human consumption. The minimum residue limits range from 1 ng/g to as high as 50 ng/g depending on the compound. Because of the complexity of food matrices measuring the level of contaminants requires a total solution composed of sample extraction, sample clean-up, chromatographic separation and detection. In this paper, a solid-phase extraction method with a high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method (HPLC–MS–MS) is shown for the simultaneous determination of six antibiotic residues.