Investigation of the effect of refining on the presence of targeted mineral oil aromatic hydrocarbons in coconut oil

Abstract: Mineral oil aromatic hydrocarbons (MOAH) traces in vegetable oils are in the focus of consumers and producers of edible oils due to discussions concerning possible genotoxicity of these compounds. The goal of this work was to investigate the impact of refining on coconut oil particularly on the most toxicologically relevant fraction of the mineral oil aromatic hydrocarbon (MOAH) contamination, namely the fraction composed by the three to seven aromatic rings. Crude coconut oil was spiked with different MOAH standards, namely naphthalenes, alkylated naphthalenes, benzo(a)pyrene, and its alkylated homologues.
Generic refining parameters for crude coconut oil were applied on pilot scale.

Analysis was carried out using a fully integrated platform consisting of a liquid chromatography (LC), a comprehensive multidimensional gas chromatography (GC) (LC-GCXGC) and flame ionization detector (FID) so as to obtain a more detailed characterization of the MOAH sub-classes distribution. The revised EN pr 16995:2017-08 official method was used for preparing the samples, both with and without the auxiliary epoxidation step.

Removal of these compounds is discussed here, as well as the new possibilities of the LC-GCXGC-FID regarding the bypassing of the disadvantages of epoxidation by this 2D technique