Determination of elaidic and vaccenic acids in foods using GC × GC-FID and GC × GC-TOFMS

Trans fatty acids (TFAs) are present in meat and dairy products as m ruminant animals and in vegetable fats due to partial hydrogenation. This study aimed to discriminate between natural (N-TFA) and hydrogenated trans fatty (H-TFA) acids by GC × GC-flame ionization detection (GC × GC-FID) and comprehensive GC × GC-time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC × GC-TOFMS). The separation of two kinds of trans fats, vaccenic acid (18:1 trans-11) and elaidic acid (18:1 trans-9), was performed using GC × GC-FID and GC × GC-TOFMS. A 100 m × 0.25 mm I.D. × 0.2 μm (film thickness) SP-2560 (bis-cyanopropyl polysiloxane) fused capillary column (first separation dimension, 1D) was coupled to a 1.5 m × 0.18 mm I.D. × 0.18 μm (film thickness) RTX-5 (5% diphenyl/95% dimethyl polysiloxane) fused capillary column (second separation dimension, 2D). The RSD of the intra-day repeatability by both GC × GC-FID and GC × GC-TOFMS for elaidic and vaccenic acids was ≤9.56% and ≤9.97%, and the RSD of the inter-day repeatability was ≤8.49 and ≤9.06%, respectively. It was found that the V/E value (vaccenic acid to elaidic acid ratio) could be used to distinguish H-TFA from N-TFA and to evaluate the quality of the fatty foods.