SPME Determining Off-Flavor

General Description Dr. Ray Marsili at Dean Foods Technical Center was confronted with the problem of determining the cause of off-flavors in milk products exposed to fluorescent lights in supermarket dairy cases. The isolation and identification of the malodorous chemicals in milk requires high sensitivity. Dynamic headspace-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (DH-GC/MS) has been the method of choice, but it is time consuming and lacks good precision. Also, dynamic headspace apparatus are expensive and require careful maintenance. Dr. Marsili investigated the feasibility of using SPME as a substitute sample preparation device prior to GC-MS analysis. The Carboxen/PDMS fiber was evaluated for the extraction of low ppb levels of pentanal, hexanal, and dimethyldisulfide. The results of the comparison of SPME to dynamic headspace analysis indicate that SPME-GC/MS is more accurate and precise while providing sensitivities equivalent to DH-GC/MS. Review the details of Dr. Marsili's evaluation of SPME by Downloading T498259, found below. Download PDF Product Name T498259 SPME Newsletter, Winter 1998/1999