Application of Gas Chromatography in Food Testing

Gas chromatography technology plays a very important role in many food safety testing methods. Gas chromatographic technology has been widely used due to its mature technology, easy to grasp, low operating cost, and it is particularly suitable for the characteristics and advantages of volatile (or convertible to volatile) substances detection.

Gas chromatography is a chromatographic method in which a sample is introduced into a gas chromatograph with an inert gas (N2 or He) as a carrier, and a gas chromatograph is used to analyze the composition of a gas or liquid sample by a gas chromatograph technique. . It is particularly suitable for the detection of gas mixtures or volatile liquids or solids, and even for very complex mixtures, the separation time is very short. Gas chromatography is the most widely used analytical method in all chromatographic methods.

At present, the application of gas chromatography in food safety testing mainly includes analysis of pesticide residues in vegetables, fruits, and tobacco; analysis of residues of veterinary drugs and clenbuterol and trimethylamine in livestock and poultry products; multiple rings in bacon Aromatic analysis; Analysis of additive content in foods; Acrylamide fractions in fried foods; Analysis of flavor components and quality control of beer, wine, and beverages; Detection and analysis of harmful substances and contents in food packaging bags; Fatty acid composition analysis.

Analysis of Pesticide Residues In recent years, organochlorine and organophosphorus pesticide residues in vegetables and fruits, and veterinary drug residues in meat and fish products have attracted widespread attention. Standard GB/T19648-2006 Determination of 500 pesticides and related chemical residues in fruits and vegetables by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Huang Huiling et al. selected GC-MS/SIM combined with large-volume injection technology to determine 17 pesticide residues including organic phosphorus, carbamates, organochlorines, and pyrethroids in vegetables and fruits.

Analysis of Food Additives Various new types of composite additives (preservatives) are widely used in breads, cakes, sauces, and other foods due to their ease of use, greatly extended shelf life, and improved quality and taste. However, long-term excessive intake will cause some damage to the body's health. GB2760-2007 has strict regulations on its use and residue, which can detect the presence of lemon yellow. Gas chromatography has excellent sensitivity and high resolution, but most of the methods reported so far are limited to the determination of juices, vinegar, jams, beverages, soy sauce, and other products, which means that the current technology is not very mature. However, some foods can also be tested.

Clenbuterol Analysis in Livestock and Poultry Clenbuterol is a popular name for clenbuterol. Adding it to feed can increase the animal growth rate, feed conversion rate, and lean body fat percentage by more than 10% and reduce fat content. . Long-term use will cause the drug to accumulate in animal tissues, resulting in high concentrations of residual drugs in the tissue. People may consume poisonous symptoms 15 minutes to 6 hours after eating this tissue. Gas chromatography can be used for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of clenbuterol hydrochloride in animal hair, urine and tissues. It takes 2 days from the pretreatment to the results, and the detection limit is 0.5μg/kg.

With the continuous development of chromatographic technology, as well as the application of high-tech, gas chromatography technology will be more and more perfect. Because it is particularly suitable for gas mixtures or volatile liquid or solids detection, even for very complex mixtures, the separation time is very short. Its remarkable advantages such as high resolution, rapid analysis and sensitive detection make it a routine detection method that has been used in every analysis and testing laboratory. Due to the complex and volatile organic compounds that are toxic to humans in most foods, gas chromatography has a very wide application prospect in food safety testing.