The EU-China-Safe project: The Assessment of a Dioxin Analytical Workflow in Food and Feed

The EU-China-Safe project is a jointly funded EU/Chinese project that aims to deliver a shared vision for food safety and authenticity based on “mutual recognition” in food standards, testing and certification. Partners in China and Europe identified that validating GC–MS/MS methods for dioxins analysis is as an economic option to build value for money testing capacity. As part of the EU-China-Safe project, Fera Science Limited (Fera) performed analysis of PCDDs, PCDFs, and dl-PCBs in food using a preconfigured Thermo Scientific TSQ 9000 triple quadrupole GC–MS/MS system equipped with the new Advanced Electron Ionization (AEI) source.

An important aspect of the collaboration was the development of an EU-China Joint Laboratory Network, which conducted a study using shared data systems to enable cooperative development of a method to demonstrate equivalency with traditional HRMS. Study results obtained from proficiency test (PT) and quality control (QC) samples were within the expected concentration ranges. These findings demonstrate that the limit of quantification (LOQ) complied to one-fifth maximum levels, and that the analytical method demonstrated the sensitivity, selectivity, and robustness required to satisfy current EU regulations 644/2017 and 771/2017.

In this webcast, we will provide an overview of how methods are being developed by the EU-China-Safe project and focus on the particular benefits of the TSQ 9000 and AEI technology for dioxin analysis.

Key Learning Objectives:

• Overview of the EU-China-Safe project and how methods are being developed within the project
• Discover a fully-validated dioxin analyzer with pre-loaded acquisition, calculation and reporting templates to simplify user training and increase productivity soon after installation
• Learn how this analytical solution is easily implemented into laboratories and able to meet EU performance criteria
• Understand how GC–MS/MS with enhanced sensitivity enables users to lower sample weight to reduce both the cost of sample preparation and system maintenance

Presenter: Sean Panton (Analytical Chemist, Food Safety and Quality, Fera Science Limited)

Sean is an analytical chemist working in the Organic Environmental Contaminants team at Fera Science Limited in York, UK. Sean has over 25 years of experience in food analysis. Sean started out in the pesticides team at Fera, developing GC- and HPLC-based methods and researching the fate of pesticides during food processing. For the last 15 years, he has been involved in analysis of polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), PCBs, dioxins, and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) in food and environmental samples using GC–MS, GC–MS/MS and GC–HRMS platforms.

Presenter: Aaron Lamb (Senior Mass Spectrometry Applications Specialist, Thermo Fisher Scientific)

Aaron is a senior mass spectrometry applications specialist working in the Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry Division at Thermo Fisher Scientific in Runcorn, UK. Aaron is an experienced analytical chemist and mass spectrometrist responsible for application method development using GC–MS, in particular using single- and triple quadrupole-based mass spectrometry for food and environmental markets. Aaron has also worked in industry as an R&D and Pharma Team Leader at Intertek using a multitude of analytical techniques including ion chromatography, GC–MS and LC–MS in health care and pharmaceutical analyses.