Determination of Heterocyclic Aromatic Amines in Process Flavors by a Modified Liquid Chromatographic Method
Abstract A liquid chromatographic method for determining heterocyclic aromatic amines (HAAs) was modified so that it can be used to quantitate the following 5 HAAs in complex process flavors: 2-amino-3-methylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoline (IQ); 2-amino-3,4-dimethylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoline (MelQ); 2-amino-3,8-dimethylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoxaline (MelQx); 2-amino-3,4,8-trimethylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoxaline (diMelQx); and 2-amino-1-methyl-6-phenylimidazo[4,5-b]pyridine (PhIP). By changing the initial extraction procedure, PhIP recovery improved from 35 to 87%. An additional cleanup step using ion-exchange solid-phase extraction reduced the levels of interfering components, thus allowing determination of low levels of the amines. Recoveries from process flavors spiked at 25 ppb averaged 83–90%.