Determination of the Composition of Volatiles in Cognac (Brandy) by Headspace Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry

A method for the quantitative determination of easily volatile compounds in cognac (brandy) by headspace gas chromatography–mass spectrometry was developed. Alcohols and carboxylic acid aldehydes, acetals, and ethylates were identified by comparing their mass spectra with those presented in the Wiley database, and by comparing their relative retention times with those of reference materials of the known composition. Detection limits for test compounds ranged from 0.02 to 0.2 mg/L. Statistically valid difference in the concentration of compounds with different aromas or specific odors was demonstrated for cognacs aged for 3, 10, and 20 years. The concentration of cognac-flavored compounds, such as diethylacetal and carboxylic acid esters, for example, ethyl formate, significantly increased with age, whereas the concentration of alcohols (butanols, allyl alcohol, hexenol, and toxic methanol) considerably decreased. Comparison analyses of some Armenian, Moldavian, Georgian, Ukrainian, Russian, Kyrgyz, and French cognacs were carried out.     

Chromatographic determination of phthalic acid esters as an indicator of adulterated cognacs and cognac spirits

Based on the study performed, a conclusion was drawn that a system of procedures should be introduced into the practice of arbitration laboratories in order to identify the authenticity of cognacs and cognac spirits. These procedures were exemplified in the identification of diethyl phthalate in cognacs. Factors responsible for the falsely positive detection of diethyl phthalate in cognacs and cognac spirits were revealed. A substance that has a retention time equal to that of diethyl phthalate was identified as monoethyl succinate. As an example, recommendations were given for revealing adulterated cognac samples upon the detection of phthalic acid esters in them (including diethyl phthalate, which is a marker of denaturation). Sources of the contamination of test samples with diethyl phthalate were identified; an algorithm was developed for distinguishing between diethyl phthalate as an impurity component and diethyl phthalate added to an alcohol as a denaturation marker.     

Chromatographic study of the chemical composition and potential toxicity of spirits and alcoholic beverages

The composition of vodkas, rectified food alcohols, cognacs, cognac spirits, and other strong alcoholic beverages was studied by chromatography and compared with the composition of industrial (synthetic and hydrolysis) ethyl alcohols, adulterated cognacs, and homemade spirits (samogon) from the illicit market. It was found that the majority of the test alcohol-containing liquids were close to commercial alcoholic beverages in terms of chemical composition and toxic properties. The samples containing ethylene glycol and enriched components of the head fraction of rectification should be considered most toxic.     

Chromatographic Techniques in the Quality Control of Cognacs and Cognac Spirits

To improve the reliability and information content of the quality control of cognacs and cognac spirits and to detect the signs of adulterated products, quality tests and methods for the instrumental analysis of cognacs and brandies by gas chromatography, high-performance liquid chromatography, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, and UV-VIS spectrophotometry are considered. A set of marker substances, the concentrations of and ratios between which allow one to detect various types of adulterations and violations in manufacturing processes, was determined and methodologically substantiated. The marker substances were tentatively subdivided into several groups: volatile components, which are characteristic of cognac and affect its organoleptic properties; oak-wood substances, which are accumulated in cognac spirit in the course of aging; flavoring components; denaturing agents; and other substances that are uncharacteristic of cognac. Particular kinds of cognac products were experimentally examined, and the most characteristic types of adulterations and technological violations in the manufacture of both domestically produced and imported cognac products were exemplified. Recommendations on the effective quality control of cognac products are given, and a high level of identification methods in use is noted.__________Translated from Zhurnal Analiticheskoi Khimii, Vol. 60, No. 8, 2005, pp. 848–868.Original Russian Text Copyright © 2005 by Savchuk, Kolesov.     

Application of FT-IR spectroscopy to the characterisation and classification of wines, brandies and other distilled drinks

FT-IR spectra were employed for the differentiation and classification of wines and brandies during their ageing process, as well as for the characterisation and differentiation of distilled drinks from several producing countries. The FT-IR spectra have enabled the differentiation of the six scales of ageing of sherry wine. A good linear regression fit (regression coefficient=0.995) has been obtained between ageing scale and the data of the FT-IR spectrum. In the case of Brandy of Jerez, it has been possible to differentiate the three degrees of ageing and to devise a system of classification by means of linear discriminant analysis, with a reliability of 83%. The application of the regression by partial least squares has allowed us to obtain a regression between the degree of ageing and the data of the FT-IR spectrum (correlation coefficient=0.986). Lastly, Spanish, French and South African brandies, as well as cognacs and armagnacs have been characterised, and a complete differentiation of the latter two types from the rest of the samples of distilled drinks has been obtained.     

Application of Chromatography and Spectrometry to the Authentication of Alcoholic Beverages

The use of gas chromatography (GC), gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS), and UV–VIS spectrophotometry for identifying the falsification of strong alcoholic beverages (vodka, gin, cognac, and whiskey) was considered. In the GC analysis of ethyl alcohol and vodkas based on it, the test alcohol was assigned to synthetic alcohol or to biochemically produced alcohol using a set of typical impurities, markers of the alcohol nature, which present in the test alcohol in a certain ratio and can be determined by GC or GC–MS analysis. The multicomponent analysis of cognacs and related liquors can reveal the replacement of cognac spirit with alcohol produced from nongrape raw materials, to determine whether the cognac spirit was in contact with oak wood and how long was the duration of its aging, and to detect the falsification of the age by adding certain ingredients. The limitations of chromatographic and spectrometric analytical techniques in the identification of adulterated alcoholic beverages was demonstrated. The validation criteria for testing the identification of alcoholic beverage components by chromatographic techniques received special attention.     

Gaschromatographischer Vergleich verschiedener Branntweine

Zusammenfassung Durch Direktinjektion von 5–20 l verschiedener Branntweine wurden auf gaschromatographischen Trennsäulen in Verbindung mit Flammenionisationsdetektoren die Verbindungen Acetaldehyd, Essigsäure-methylester, Essigsäure-äthylester, Methanol, Butanol-2, Propanol-1, 2-Methylpropanol-1, Butanol-1, 2-Methyl-butanol-1, 3-Methyl-butanol-1 und Hexanol-1 aufgetrennt und quantitativ bestimmt. Vergleiche der Analysenzahlen zeigen, daß sich die Branntweingruppen Obstbrände, Weinbrände und Getreidebrände deutlich voneinander abgrenzen und darüber hinaus z.B. zwischen Cognacs und Weinbränden bzw. zwischen schottischen, amerikanischen und kanadischen Whiskies unterschieden werden kann.

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Summary By direct injection of 5–20 l of various spirits the following compounds can be separated and determined on gas-chromatographic columns using flame-ionization detectors: acetaldehyde, methyl acetate, ethyl acetate, methanol, butanol-2, propanol-1, 2-methyl-propanol-1, butanol-1, 2-methyl-butanol-1, 3-methyl-butanol-1 and hexanol-1. A comparison of the analytical results reveals distinct differences between spirits from fruit, wine and grain. Moreover, different analytical results are obtained for cognacs and (German) brandies, and for Scotch, American and Canadian whiskies.

     

Validation study of immunoaffinity column chromatography coupled with solution fluorometry or HPLC for the detection of aflatoxin in peanuts and corn

Neogen Corp. has developed the Neocolumn for Aflatoxin DR for the detection of total aflatoxin by HPLC or solution fluorometry. The purpose of this study was to validate the method under the requirements of the AOAC Research Institute Performance Tested Methods (PTM) program. There are several AOAC Official Methods for detection of total aflatoxin in corn; they consist of rapid and analytical-based methods and two rapid methods (PTMs 030701 and 050901) that have been performance tested by the AOAC Research Institute. A widely used reference method, however, is AOAC Official Method 991.31, which uses immumoaffinity cleanup followed by HPLC or solution fluorometry and is referred to as the reference method in this document. In internal studies, the Neocolumn method coupled with solution fluorometry demonstrated a relative recovery from peanuts of 101.6% of the reference value, with a CV of 3.9% across all levels analyzed; when coupled with HPLC, the Neocolumn method demonstrated a relative recovery from peanuts of 103.0% of the reference value with a CV of 3.5% across all levels analyzed. The Neocolumn method coupled with solution fluorometry demonstrated a relative recovery from corn of 116.9% of the reference value with a CV of 6.1% across all levels analyzed; when coupled with HPLC, the Neocolumn method demonstrated a relative recovery from corn of 91.2% of the reference value, with a CV of 5.4% across all levels analyzed. Calculations were made by comparison with the mean result obtained by the HPLC reference method, which showed respective CV values of 3.9 and 2.0% for recoveries from peanuts and corn, respectively.     

酶解-离子色谱法测定烟草中的果胶

建立了一种测定烟草中果胶含量的酶解-离子色谱法,并对酶解条件进行了优化.即样品经快速溶剂萃取仪用80%乙醇除糖后,在47℃、pH4条件下用果胶酶酶解2 h,用离子色谱测定酶解液中的半乳糖醛酸含量.该法的线性相关系数为0.999 3,回收率98.3%～100.8%,RSD为3.43%.     

Role of binding entropy in the refinement of protein-ligand docking predictions: analysis based on the use of 11 scoring functions

We present results of testing the ability of eleven popular scoring functions to predict native docked positions using a recently developed method (Ruvinsky and Kozintsev, J Comput Chem 2005, 26, 1089) for estimation the entropy contributions of relative motions to protein-ligand binding affinity. The method is based on the integration of the configurational integral over clusters obtained from multiple docked positions. We use a test set of 100 PDB protein-ligand complexes and ensembles of 101 docked positions generated by (Wang et al. J Med Chem 2003, 46, 2287) for each ligand in the test set. To test the suggested method we compared the averaged root-mean square deviations (RMSD) of the top-scored ligand docked positions, accounting and not accounting for entropy contributions, relative to the experimentally determined positions. We demonstrate that the method increases docking accuracy by 10-21% when used in conjunction with the AutoDock scoring function, by 2-25% with G-Score, by 7-41% with D-Score, by 0-8% with LigScore, by 1-6% with PLP, by 0-12% with LUDI, by 2-8% with F-Score, by 7-29% with ChemScore, by 0-9% with X-Score, by 2-19% with PMF, and by 1-7% with DrugScore. We also compared the performance of the suggested method with the method based on ranking by cluster occupancy only. We analyze how the choice of a clustering-RMSD and a low bound of dense clusters impacts on docking accuracy of the scoring methods. We derive optimal intervals of the clustering-RMSD for 11 scoring functions.     

Comparison of high-performance liquid chromatography and high-performance capillary electrophoresis for the determination of cicletanine in plasma.

A sensitive and selective high-performance capillary electrophoresis (HPCE) procedure was developed for the determination of total cicletanine in human plasma. The procedure consisted in extraction of the drug with diethyl ether and analysis by micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography in a fused-silica capillary using sodium dodecyl sulphate in the run buffers and ultraviolet detection. The concentrations of cicletanine obtained by this method were compared with those obtained by a high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method used routinely. The within-run precision of the methods, expressed as relative standard deviation, ranged from 1.6 to 7.8% for HPLC and from 6.4 to 11.1% for HPCE. Both methods showed an adequate level of accuracy; the relative errors ranged from 0.02 to 3.25% for HPLC and from 0.21 to 2.90% for HPCE. The HPCE method required less than half the time taken by the HPLC method, making HPCE a useful alternative technique for the routine determination of cicletanine in plasma. Both methods were used to follow the time course of total cicletanine in human plasma after a single oral therapeutic dose of the drug.     

Validation of a confirmatory method for the determination of macrolides in liver and kidney animal tissues in accordance with the European Union regulation 2002/657/EC

This study proposes a simple multiresidue liquid chromatography-diode array detector (LC-DAD) method capable of determining seven macrolide antibiotics in samples of liver and kidney animals at concentrations lower than those allowed by current legislation. Samples were prepared by homogenizing the tissue with EDTA-McIlvaine's buffer and extracted with an Oasis HLB cartridge. The consumption of organic solvent during extraction was minimum. The analytes were detected by LC-DAD and also by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry with electrospray ionization (LC-(ESI)MS). The method was specific, stable and robust enough for the required purposes. The DAD method was validated in accordance with the European Commission Decision 657/2002. Recovery data were also satisfactory with values higher than 67% for most macrolide antibiotics extracted from liver and kidney samples spiked at 200 microg/kg, the lowest MRL established for the macrolides studied. The relative standard deviations (RSD (%), (n=3)) were lower than 13% and 15% for intra-day and inter-day assays. The method was applied to investigate the occurrence of the studied macrolides in 31 beef and kidney animal samples. The results obtained by LC-DAD for positive samples were compared to those obtained by LC-(ESI)MS. Therefore, the method with simpler instrumentation than a LC-(ESI)MS can be used as a control method and the results of the validation process demonstrate that this method is suitable for application in a European Union program for monitoring residues of veterinary drugs.     

苹果及土壤中的螺螨酯残留分析方法

研究并建立了用乙腈提取,弗罗里硅土净化,气相色谱-电子捕获检测器检测苹果和土壤中螺螨酯残留的分析方法.螺螨酯在苹果和土壤中的添加回收率分别为82.11%～100.36%和79.27%～94.55%,相对标准偏差分别为0.92%～6.84%和1.89%～8.57%.该方法的准确度、精确度以及灵敏度均达到农药残留分析的要求.     

WEFTA interlaboratory comparison on total lipid determination in fishery products using the Smedes method

Lipid determination by the Smedes method was tested in an interlaboratory trial performed by nine laboratories from seven countries belonging to the West European Fish Technologists Association Analytical Methods Working Group. Five samples of fish and fishery products with different lipid contents, including two blind duplicates, were distributed among the participants. All laboratories applied a slightly modified Smedes method, which included extraction of lipids by cyclohexane and isopropanol, transfer of lipids to the cyclohexane phase by addition of water, phase separation by centrifugation, and gravimetric lipid determination. The results indicate that the RSD for reproducibility (RSD(R)) was between 4.11 and 6.31% for samples with moderate (7%) and high (14%) lipid content, depending on the sample. Larger SDs among the laboratories were obtained for a cod sample with low lipid content of 0.5%. The method is judged to be suitable as a routine method for lipid determination in fish and fishery products.     

千山野菊花挥发性化学成分的提取与分析

报道了用蒸馏-萃取法和同时蒸馏-萃取法提取千山野菊花中挥发性物质,测得用两种方法提取的千山野菊花挥发油含量分别为6．1％和7．0％,用GC／MS法从千山野菊花挥发油中分别分离并确定出34种和29种化学成分,分别占千山野菊花挥发油总检出量的89．47％和90．72％,用峰面积归一化法得出各类化学成分在挥发油中的相对百分含量。     

Measurement of protein in serum and rodent embryos by spectrophotometry at 215 and 225 nm

The Waddell quantitative method for total protein estimation was slightly modified and applied to sera and rodent embryos, and also compared to the Lowry method. It was not necessary to employ the Kjeldahl method to determine an instrument correction factor; reference sera were used to establish a standard curve. The results from this simplified Waddell method were reproducible from day to day with a high degree of accuracy. Comparative data obtained by total protein determination in three commercially available reference sera demonstrated a sensitivity in the modified Waddell method of 4.8 μg/ml with a precision of >96% and an accuracy of >93%. The overall precision in the determination of the total protein by the method in Day 12 rat embryos was >91% as compared to >86% in the Lowry method.     

Quantitative analysis of methadone in human urine samples by microextraction in packed syringe-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (MEPS-GC-MS)

A method for the simultaneous analysis of methadone in urine samples by microextraction in a packed syringe online with GC-MS (MEPS-GC-MS) is described. The new method reduced the sample handling and the detection limit by two- to seven-fold compared to published methods. Using a quantitation method based on the calculation of analyte concentration by comparison to an internal standard, we were able to measure methadone levels consistent with values reported for healthy individuals. The intra-assay precisions (RSD) of the method using quality control (QC) samples at three different concentration levels were about 11-14% (n = 6). The interassay precisions (RSD) were 11-15% for methadone in urine samples (n = 18). The accuracy varied from 89 to 109% for intra-assay (n = 6), and 97 to 107% for inter-assay (n = 18). The regression correlation coefficients (r(2)) were over 0.99 in all experiments.     

Differential pulse voltammetric determination of uranium in low concentration streams

A differential pulse voltammetric method has been successfully used for the determination of uranium in low concentration streams of a uranium plant. The method gives a precision of about 13% to 7% in the range of 300 ppb to 15 ppm. The accuracy of the results was ascertained by comparing the values with those obtained by a spectrophotometric method. The method is simple, fast, sensitive, fairly accurate and does not require a preconcentration step.     

固相萃取-气相色谱-负化学离子源质谱法测定运动场所合成材料面层和稀释剂中的短链氯化石蜡

建立了用于运动场所合成材料面层和稀释剂中短链氯化石蜡（SCCPs）总含量测定的固相萃取-气相色谱-负化学离子源质谱法（SPE-GC-NCI-MS）。对气相色谱和质谱的分析条件进行了优化;试样经超声提取、弗罗里硅土固相萃取小柱净化后,选择性离子监测模式（SIM）扫描,外标法定量。方法在0.0501~100.17 mg/L的宽广范围内有良好的线性关系,线性相关系数R²为0.9995,方法检出限低至0.50 μg/g（即0.000050%）,平均回收率为83.2%~96.3%,相对标准偏差为1.56%~6.02%。对10批次实际样品进行检测,含量在0.016%~0.55%范围内,检测结果满足欧盟对此类物质的限量要求。方法可用于运动场所合成材料面层和稀释剂中短链氯化石蜡的实际检测。     

X射线荧光光谱法测定电解锰中锰、硅、磷和铁含量

熔融制样X射线荧光光谱法测定电解锰中锰、硅、磷和铁含量。用熔融后的四硼酸锂制作铂金坩埚保护层,以BaO2做氧化剂,在马弗炉内通过逐渐升温来氧化电解锰,然后熔融制取玻璃熔片,用X射线荧光(XRF)光谱法分析电解锰中锰、硅、磷和铁含量。锰、硅、磷和铁的相对标准偏差RSD分别为0.23%、2.82%、0.31%和0.53%。与其它分析方法比较,其结果更稳定。有效消除了电解锰熔融制样过程中的坩埚腐蚀问题,分析误差可完全控制在国家相关标准允许的范围内,实现了电解锰中各元素的快速准确测定。