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Determination of furan and its derivatives in preserved dried fruits and roasted nuts marketed in China using an optimized HS-SPME GC/MS method

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Abstract

Furan, which has been identified as possibly carcinogenic for humans, can be induced to different food items by thermal treatment. In accordance with the previous studies and risks associated with prevalence of furan in food, it is necessary to be acknowledged of amounts of furan formed in different thermally processed foods for human awareness. In this study, Headspace Solid-Phase Microextraction Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry (HS-SPME-GC/MS) was optimized for simultaneous determination of furan, furfural, 2-methylfuran and 2-pentylfuran for the first time from different dried fruits and roasted nuts. The method was proved to be valid for determination of all analytes at 50 °C for 25 min, stirring at 700 rpm and 20% NaCl (W/V) using 50/30 μm divinlybenzene/carboxen/polysimethylsiloxane (DVB/CAR/PDMS) fibre. All analytes were baseline-separated at HP 5-MS column in less than 13 min and obtained results have shown prevalence of furan, furfural and 2-pentylfuran in the studied matrices; however, 2-pentylfuran was more prevalent in the roasted nuts than dried fruits and 2-methylfuran has not shown considerable prevalence in both matrices. Moreover, this method was validated in terms of linearity, precision, recovery, specificity, limit of detection and limit of quantification depending on analytes and sample matrices. Hence, the present method was proved to be highly sensitive, specific and robust with good precision and accuracy and suitable for monitoring these furan derivatives in the studied matrices.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Key R & D Program of China (No. 2017YFC1600401), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 31671961 and 31701727), Key Projects of Guangdong Natural Science Foundation (No. 2017A030311021), Key Project of Guangzhou S&T Program (No. 201904020005), YangFan Innovative and Enterpreneurial Research Team Project (2014YT02S029) and the 973 program (No.2012CB720801).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Guangdong Province Key Laboratory for Green Processing of Natural Products and Product Safety, College of Food Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640, China

    Zahra Batool, Lin Li, Dan Xu, Ming Wu, Longmei Weng, Wenjuan Jiao, Umme Roobab, Xia Zhang, Xiaoxi Li & Bing Li

  2. Analytical and Testing Center, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640, China

    Hao Cheng

  3. School of Chemical Engineering and Energy Technology, Dongguan University of Technology, Dongguan, 523808, China

    Lin Li

  4. Guangdong Zhongqing Font Biochemical Science and Technology Co. Ltd., Maoming, 525427, China

    Yi Liang

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  1. Zahra Batool
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Batool, Z., Li, L., Xu, D. et al. Determination of furan and its derivatives in preserved dried fruits and roasted nuts marketed in China using an optimized HS-SPME GC/MS method. Eur Food Res Technol 246, 2065–2077 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00217-020-03556-2

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