Best of the Week: Investigating Volatiles in Food Packaging, The Future of Digital Method Development, and More
This week, LCGC International published a variety of articles on trending topics in separation science. Below, we’ve highlighted some of the most popular articles, according to our readers. Happy reading!
Investigating the Influence of Packaging on the Volatile Profile of Oats
Laura McGregor, Meriem Gaida, James Ogden
Investigating the migration of volatiles from food packaging is essential for ensuring the safety, quality, and sensory integrity of food products. Packaging materials that include plastics, adhesives, and inks can release volatiles that migrate into food. These can potentially lead to the contamination and alteration of sensory characteristics such as taste and aroma. Understanding these mechanisms is essential for complying with food safety regulations and for developing packaging to reduce these interactions. In the testing of six different oat brands, headspace sorptive extraction and comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC×GC–TOF-MS) reveal how various packaging types—cardboard, paperƒ, and plastic—can affect and alter the oats’ volatile profile, underscoring the potential impact of packaging on food quality.
The Future of Digital Method Development: An Interview with Anne Marie Smith
Will Wetzel
Digital method development is the process of using digital tools to collect and analyze data sets and is the norm in most laboratories. But the introduction of new tools like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), could shake up the space. The International Council for Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (ICH) is a collaborative effort between regulatory bodies and pharmaceutical companies to discuss and provide guidelines for pharmaceutical product development. Recently, the ICH put forth new guidelines, titled “Analytical Procedure Development Q14,” which focused on analytical procedures for drug substances. At the 2024 HPLC conference in Denver, Colorado, Anne Marie Smith of ACD/Labs discussed these new guidelines in depth. Smith sat down with LCGC International to discuss the future of digital method development and data analysis.
Alasdair Matheson
The 54th International Symposium on High Performance Liquid Phase Separations and Related Techniques (HPLC 2025) will be held from Sunday through Thursday, 15–19 June 2025, in Bruges, Belgium. LCGC International spoke to the Scientific Committee to find out what’s in store. Featured within this interview are submission deadlines, what attendees can look forward to at the conference, and more.
USP CEO Discusses Quality and Partnership in Pharma
Aaron Acevedo
The CEO of the United States Pharmacoepia (USP) highlighted the importance of collaboration and component quality in pharmaceutical development during a presentation at the Eastern Analytical Symposium in Princeton, New Jersey last month. Ronald Piervincenzi’s lecture emphasized the development and goals of the USP, and how improving material quality and establishing worldwide standard progression can further the field as a whole.
Measuring Tooth Discoloration from Coffee with HPLC
John Chasse
Discoloration of teeth is often the result of dietary habits and lifestyle choices; among the culprits, coffee stands out as a particular culprit due to both its widespread consumption and significant staining potential. Although evidence indicates the tannins, CGAs, and chromogens contained in coffee are linked to discoloration, the components that have the most substantial effects, and the mechanisms involved, are unclear, although CGA content in coffee has been determined to positively correlate with tooth discoloration. Specific coffee consumption habits are potential factors in the degree of tooth discoloration. In a recent study from the Journal of Oral Sciences, scientists investigated the associations of coffee roasting level, chlorogenic acid (CGA) content, absorbance level, and their combined effects with tooth discoloration used high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectrophotometry to measure CGA content in the analyzed bovine tooth enamel specimens.
Sorbonne Researchers Develop Miniaturized GC Detector for VOC Analysis
April 16th 2025A team of scientists from the Paris university developed and optimized MAVERIC, a miniaturized and autonomous gas chromatography (GC) system coupled to a nano-gravimetric detector (NGD) based on a NEMS (nano-electromechanical-system) resonator.
Analytical Challenges in Measuring Migration from Food Contact Materials
November 2nd 2015Food contact materials contain low molecular weight additives and processing aids which can migrate into foods leading to trace levels of contamination. Food safety is ensured through regulations, comprising compositional controls and migration limits, which present a significant analytical challenge to the food industry to ensure compliance and demonstrate due diligence. Of the various analytical approaches, LC-MS/MS has proved to be an essential tool in monitoring migration of target compounds into foods, and more sophisticated approaches such as LC-high resolution MS (Orbitrap) are being increasingly used for untargeted analysis to monitor non-intentionally added substances. This podcast will provide an overview to this area, illustrated with various applications showing current approaches being employed.
Common Challenges in Nitrosamine Analysis: An LCGC International Peer Exchange
April 15th 2025A recent roundtable discussion featuring Aloka Srinivasan of Raaha, Mayank Bhanti of the United States Pharmacopeia (USP), and Amber Burch of Purisys discussed the challenges surrounding nitrosamine analysis in pharmaceuticals.
Extracting Estrogenic Hormones Using Rotating Disk and Modified Clays
April 14th 2025University of Caldas and University of Chile researchers extracted estrogenic hormones from wastewater samples using rotating disk sorption extraction. After extraction, the concentrated analytes were measured using liquid chromatography coupled with photodiode array detection (HPLC-PDA).
