Improved Recoveries and Lower Background for the Analysis of PAH's in Olive Oil

A recent survey implemented by Supelco (USA) revealed that 58% of analytical chemists in the food industry find the analysis of compounds in fatty matrices to be highly problematic. Lipid interferences can produce elevated detection limits, contamination of LC and GC systems, and ultimately decrease instrument and column lifetime. Current extraction and cleanup techniques for fatty samples may be time consuming, expensive, and/or provide insufficient background removal prior to analysis. For this reason, a new approach has been developed.

The Supelclean EZ-POP NP, a dual-layer SPE cartridge containing Florisil and Z-Sep/C18, was designed for the extraction of nonpolar analytes from oil matrices. By means of Lewis acid/base and hydrophobic interactions, fatty matrix interferences are preferentially retained by the cartridge while analytes of interest are eluted. In this way, lipid interferences are removed from the sample.

A recent study compared the Supelclean EZ-POP NP to silica gel SPE for the extraction of PAHs from olive oil, a problematic fatty matrix. In terms of lipid removal, the EZ-POP NP removed more unwanted background than silica gel SPE, greatly decreasing the matrix effects. The EZ-POP NP produced better overall analyte recoveries than the silica gel SPE, with adequate reproducibility. Thus, the Supelclean EZ-POP NP provides suitable matrix removal for rugged GC-MS analysis of PAHs in olive oil.