Gas chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry with long-term alkaline transesterification for the determination of esters of monochloropropanediols and glycidol with fatty acids in edible vegetable oils and fats

Abstract

Introduction. The article discusses the method of determination of 2-, 3-monochloropropanediol (2-MCPDE, 3-MCPDE) and glycidyl (GE) fatty acids esters in edible vegetable oils and fats by slow alkaline transesterification and GC-MS/MS. Many toxicological data showed these substances to have the potential for human health risks if consumed; in addition, existing determination methods have various limitations. So, there is a need to expand the variety of 2-MCPDE, 3-MCPDE and GE determination methods. Materials and methods. 2- and 3-MCPD esters, and glycidyl esters in their corresponding free forms were measured by slow alkaline transesterification with GC-MS/MS. Results. Multiple reactions monitoring mode parameters were optimized. Compared to SIM operating mode, MRM mode improved the selectivity and increased the signal-to-noise ratio. The method was linear in the range of 0.3 mg/kg - 30.0 mg/kg for each analyte. Recovery, tested in this range, was found to be 87.5%-113.6 %. Conclusion. The method discussed here was based on the ISO 18363-2: 2018 standard. In contrast to the last one, we used tandem chromatography-mass spectrometry to detect analytes and a method of absolute calibration with internal standards to quantitate them. In addition, it is proposed to analyze a spiked sample during the sequence of unknown samples to improve the quality of results.