Mineral oil hydrocarbons (MOHs) are a very complex mixture of isomers mainly associated with two classes of compounds, namely MOSH (composed by linear, branched, and alkyl-substituted cyclo-alkanes) and MOAH (which includes mainly alkyl-substituted (poly)aromatic hydrocarbons at a different number of fused rings). MOHs can contaminate foods through different sources. The analysis of such a contaminant in food is a challenging task, mainly due to the high complexity of the matrices and the high affinity with the lipid fraction and many of its components. The method of election for the quantitative determination of MOSH&MOAH is LC-GC-FID, but the chromatographic profile obtained is a hump of unresolved substances. GC-MS alone fail to work as a confirmatory method. On this scenario, GC×GC-ToFMS/FID is the most promising solution to characterize the MOSH and MOAH fraction in details and to detect markers that can support corrective action towards the identification of the source of contamination. Moreover, work is in progress to validate a fully integrated LC-GC×GC-ToFMS/FID platform for merge both routine and confirmatory analyses.
