Mineral oil paraffins in jute bags and cocoa butter

Bonvehí, J. and Ventura Coll, F. (2014) Mineral oil paraffins in jute bags and cocoa butter. Acta Alimentaria, 43 (1). pp. 40-52. ISSN 0139-3006

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Abstract

Jute bags and cocoa butter (CB) were analysed by gas chromatography (GC-FID/MS) to detect and quantify mineral oil saturated hydrocarbons (MOSH). Extraction clean-up on silica gel SPE (10 g/60 ml) was developed, as a unique sample preparation step for the determination of linear and branched n-alkanes in the range C₁₄ to C₃₁. The size of CB sample (500 mg) was sufficient for the detection of batching oil at levels of 2 mg kg⁻¹, with satisfactory recovery and repeatability. MOSH from batching oil form a hump of unresolved components and the shape reflect balanced molecular-mass distribution between even and odd carbon atoms (from C₁₄ to C₂₂n-alkanes), expressed with the Carbon Preference Index (CPI=∑odd homologs/∑even homologs). Contaminated raw CB extracted from cocoa beans, transported and stored in jute bags during 2000 and 2001, showed MOSH (average 42 mg kg⁻¹). However, only the 7.5% of the samples analysed of deodorized CB from 2007 to 2009 contained MOSH <36 mg kg⁻¹. High CPI values (>1.26) were attributed to natural hydrocarbons with a strong predominance of odd-numbered paraffins, situated between C₂₂ and C₃₁n-alkanes (average 31.7±5.37 mg kg⁻¹). The results confirmed that MOSH components below n-C₂₀ were fully eliminated by the deodorization process.

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