Efficient quantification of water content in edible oils by headspace gas chromatography with vapour phase calibration.

BACKGROUND: An automated and accurate headspace gas chromatographic (HS-GC) technique was investigated for rapidly quantifying water content in edible oils. In this method, multiple headspace extraction (MHE) procedures were used to analyse the integrated water content from the edible oil sample. A simple vapour phase calibration technique with an external vapour standard was used to calibrate both the water content in the gas phase and the total weight of water in edible oil sample. After that the water in edible oils can be quantified.

RESULTS: The data showed that the relative standard deviation of the present HS-GC method in the precision test was less than 1.13%, the relative differences between the new method and a reference method (i.e. the oven-drying method) were no more than 1.62%.

CONCLUSION: The present HS-GC method is automated, accurate, efficient, and can be a reliable tool for quantifying water content in edible oil related products and research. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry.