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Gas-diffusion microextraction coupled with spectrophotometry for the determination of formaldehyde in cork agglomerates

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Abstract

In this work, a simple methodology was developed for the extraction and determination of free formaldehyde content in cork agglomerate samples. For the first time, gas-diffusion microextraction was used for the extraction of volatile formaldehyde directly from samples, with simultaneous derivatization with acetylacetone (Hantzsch reaction). The absorbance of the coloured solution was read in a spectrophotometer at 412 nm. Different extraction parameters were studied and optimized (extraction temperature, sample mass, volume of acceptor solution, extraction time and concentration of derivatization reagent) by means of an asymmetric screening. The developed methodology proved to be a reliable tool for the determination of formaldehyde in cork agglomerates with the following suitable method features: low LOD (0.14 mg kg-1) and LOQ (0.47 mg kg-1), r 2 = 0.9994, and intraday and interday precision of 3.5 and 4.9%, respectively. The developed methodology was applied to the determination of formaldehyde in different cork agglomerate samples, and contents between 1.9 and 9.4 mg kg−1 were found. Furthermore, formaldehyde was also determined by the standard method EN 717-3 for comparison purposes; no significant differences between the results of both methods were observed.

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Acknowledgements

This work is funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Project AGL-2014-53647-R) and FEDER and with financial support from FCT/MEC through national funds and co-financed by FEDER, under the Partnership Agreement PT2020 - UID/QUI/50006/2013 - POCI/01/0145/FEDER/007265, which includes a studentship to PFB. RMR (SFRH/BD/88166/2012) wishes to acknowledge FCT for his PhD studentship. IMV (SFRH/BPD/111181/2015) wishes to acknowledge FCT for her post-doctoral grant funded by the Portuguese Ministry of Education and Science and by the European Social Fund within the 2014–2020 Strategic Framework.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. REQUIMTE/LAQV - Departamento de Química e Bioquímica, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade do Porto, Rua do Campo Alegre, 687, 4169-007, Porto, Portugal

    Pedro F. Brandão, Rui M. Ramos, Inês M. Valente, Paulo J. Almeida & José A. Rodrigues

  2. REQUIMTE/LAQV-ICBAS - Departamento de Clínicas Veterinárias, Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar, Universidade do Porto, R. Jorge de Viterbo Ferreira 228, 4050-343, Porto, Portugal

    Inês M. Valente

  3. Departamento de Química Analítica, Nutricion y Bromatologia, Facultad de Quimica, Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria de Santiago de Compostela (IDIS), Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Avda. das Ciencias, s/n. Campus sur, 15782, Santiago de Compostela, Spain

    Antonia M. Carro & Rosa A. Lorenzo

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  1. Pedro F. Brandão
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  2. Rui M. Ramos
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  3. Inês M. Valente
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Correspondence to Rui M. Ramos.

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Brandão, P.F., Ramos, R.M., Valente, I.M. et al. Gas-diffusion microextraction coupled with spectrophotometry for the determination of formaldehyde in cork agglomerates. Anal Bioanal Chem 409, 2885–2892 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-017-0233-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-017-0233-x

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