RAFA 2024: Learning from Giorgia Purcaro of the University of Liège

Giorgia Purcaro has a degree in food science and technology and a Ph.D. in food chemistry. As a postdoc, she specialized in advanced chromatographic techniques, particularly GC×GC, LC–GC, and LC–GC×GC. Since 2018, she has been appointed as analytical chemistry professor at Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech (University of Liège, Belgium). Her main areas of application are related to food quality and safety. She was awarded the L.S. Ettre (2010) and the J. Philipps (2015) Awards at the Joint International Symposium on Capillary Chromatography & GC×GC Symposium for her contribution to the GC×GC field. She has authored or co-authored more than 110 peer-reviewed publications.

At RAFA 2024, Giorgia answered the following questions:

• Why are mineral oil hydrocarbons (MOH) being investigated in food analysis, and what types of MOH are being investigated?
• What makes the analysis of MOH challenging? What specific challenges have you encountered in distinguishing between mineral oil aromatic hydrocarbons (MOAH) and mineral oil saturated hydrocarbons (MOSH) using GC×GC?
• How does GC×GC address the limitations of the current LC-GC-FID method in separating and identifying the diverse structures within mineral oil hydrocarbons (MOH)?
• What role do you believe GC×GC can play in improving regulatory compliance, especially with the latest EFSA guidelines on MOH analysis?
• You recently published an Improved microwave-assisted saponification to reduce the variability of MOAH determination in edible oils. What are the main benefits of this approach for the analyst?
• How does the reduction in uncertainty associated with MOAH quantification impact the overall efficiency and cost-effectiveness of chromatographic workflows when analyzing edible oils?

To learn more, you can also look to our RAFA 2024 interview with Michael Sulyok.