MOSH&MOAH in food ingredients and additives - LC/GC×GC(-FID/TOFMS) (Aleksandra Gorska, MDCW 2025)

🎤 Presenter: Aleksandra Gorska (Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech (University of Liège), Gembloux, Belgium)

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💡 Book in your calendar: 17th Multidimensional Chromatography Workshop (MDCW) 13 - 15. January 2026

Abstract

Mineral oil saturated hydrocarbons (MOSH) and mineral oil aromatic hydrocarbons (MOAH) are contaminants of increasing concern for the food industry due to their widespread occurrence and uncertain toxicity. The ISO 20122:2024 is currently the only official method for their analysis, and it has only been validated on several vegetable oils. The workflow consists of extensive sample preparation followed by LC-GC-FID analysis. However, many challenges remain with this analysis. Accurate quantification is often difficult, particularly when biogenic substances coelute with MOSH or MOAH unresolved complex mixtures (UCMs). In these cases, chromatogram integration is largely based on the operator's interpretation.

Switching to LC-GC×GC-FID has proven to be a useful approach to reduce the uncertainty associated with interpretation. The second GC dimension helps differentiate biogenic compounds from MOSH and MOAH. Adding mass spectrometry (MS) detection further enhances the ability to distinguish coeluting substances. These advantages make LC-GC×GC-FID/TOFMS particularly useful for investigating MOSH/MOAH contamination in new matrices, where the present interferences are not yet well understood.

This presentation will illustrate the advantages of LC-GC×GC-FID/TOFMS for analysing MOSH/MOAH in food ingredients and additives, for which limited data is available. Additionally, it will show how the LC step preceding GC analysis, which initially serves to separate MOSH from MOAH and retain more polar compounds, can also help reduce or eliminate certain interferences.