A study on optimization of sample preparation for gas chromatographic methods used in routine irradiated foodstuffs detection

The study is focused on the optimization and minimization of sample preparation procedures given in EN 1784 and EN 1785 standardized methods for the detection of irradiated foodstuffs which contain fats. The techniques used in this study were gas chromatography (GC) with a flame ionization detector (FID) for hydrocarbons (HC) detection and GC coupled with mass spectrometry (MS) for 2-alkylcyclobutanones detection. Our work revealed that alternative extraction and clean-up procedures as well as alternative injection modes like large volume injection can significantly reduce the total analysis time and costs with comparable results.