Mineral oil saturated hydrocarbons and mineral oil aromatic hydrocarbons (MOSH/MOAH) are contaminants in foods and cosmetics that often originate from the food packaging, for example from recycled cardboard, but also from various other anthropogenic sources during production and transport. Due to the carcinogenic and toxic properties of many MOSH/MOAH compounds it is necessary to closely monitor the contamination in many products.
Determination is carried out as sum parameters using LC-GC-FID systems and internal standards, with one GC channel for each parameter. Evaluation of the results is very tedious and time consuming, as the sums of MOSH and MOAH are not detected as single peaks that can be integrated automatically, but as humps in the chromatogram over a long retention time range that impedes automatic peak integration. Other compounds in the sample appear as peaks on top of the humps that need to be subtracted from the hump area. To facilitate the hump integration and provide reproducible results in a shorter time, Lablicate and GERSTEL developed a software solution for automatic data evaluation of MOSH/MOAH chromatograms. The software supports datafiles from different analytical instruments and the use of different internal standards.
All parameters for standards, retention time standards as well as for the solvent peak can be adjusted manually, if desired. The relative response of all standards is continuously monitored against a preset value and the correctness is indicated by a simple color feedback in the results overview. In chromatogram view, peaks can be integrated manually, if necessary, and automatic blank correction is performed, as well as subtraction of any peaks on top of the hump. Beside the default integration time ranges from the JRC guidance, custom values can be set and the ranges are visualized by different colors. A custom report can be created with just a few clicks as an ASCII (*.txt), Adobe PDF (*.pdf) or Microsoft Excel (*.xlsx) file. Overall, the GERSTEL/OpenChrom MOSH/MOAH evaluation software provides a valuable tool to precisely and efficiently process MOSH/MOAH analysis data. It will bring a huge relief to every overworked lab employee who has more to do than integrating humps all day.