A versatile splitless injection GC-FID method for the determination of mineral oil paraffins in vegetable oils and dried fruit

A splitless injection GC-FID method for determining mineral paraffins in food was set up. The method has been developed on vegetable oils and subsequently adjusted and applied to dried fruits, a food matrix not yet investigated from this point of view. The method avoids the saponification step foreseeing only a clean-up on silica gel SPE, and allows the quantification of mineral paraffins with a limit of quantification (LOQ) of 15 mg kg(-1) and a detection limit (LOD) of 5 mg kg(-1) in the oils. LOQ and LOD for the analysis of dried fruit samples are respectively 1.0 and 0.3 mg kg. Eighteen samples of dried fruit were analysed (apricots, plums, raisins, coconut, dates, mango, pineapple). Two samples of apricots showed high values of contamination, 23.0 and 28.2 mg kg(-1) of mineral paraffins, while all the other samples contained less than 6.4 mg kg(-1) of mineral paraffins and in four samples mineral paraffins were undetectable. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.