Development of a greener and sustainable method to determine acrylamide in corn products by LC-MS/MS: Evaluation of levels in corn-based products

Abstract

Acrylamide (AA) is produced through the reaction between sugars and amino acids present in starchy foods cooked at high temperature. It is classified as probably carcinogenic to humans. In 2019, the European Commission reported a list of foods for monitoring the presence of AA, which includes cereal snacks. This study presents the development and validation of an analytical approach for detecting AA in popcorn and corn-based snacks. It includes solid-liquid extraction and clean-up with dispersive solid phase extraction followed by analysis through liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry. The proposed method was characterized in terms of recoveries (84-105%), and precision (< 16.1%). Limits of quantification were 17 and 60 μg kg^-1 for corn and popcorn, respectively. Sustainability of the methodology was evaluated using AGREEprep and BAGI, providing values of 0.43 and 65.0, respectively. Twenty-four corn-based products were analyzed, with AA levels from 219 to 418 μg kg^-1.

Keywords: AGREEprep; Acrylamide; Blue applicability grade index; Corn-based products; LC-MS/MS; Popcorn; Validation.