Favio García

Meeting the challenge of lower detection limits in the agrofood industry

29 Mar 2021

Legislation and regulation in the quality control of food and food contact materials are challenging the capabilities of current technology as detection limits are continuously lowered and new chemicals to detect are introduced. In this interview, Favio García, Senior engineer at Aiju Technological Institute of Children’s product and leisure, discusses their work in the consumer goods industry analyzing NIAS in food contact materials using mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography. Garcia explains how the InfinityLab LC/MSD iQ by Agilent Technologies has allowed detection of lower concentrations of chemicals of interest as legislation continuously lowers detection limits.

My name is Favio García. My role in Aiju is to research and develop new methodologies to carry on good quality control. As a chemist, I started my career working in the field of analytical chemistry. Previously to my current job, I was in an agro-food industry laboratory. There, I analyzed pesticides in food and foodstuff using GC and LC mass spectrometry instrumentation.

Here, in AIJU, we focus on the quality control of children's products and food contact material. We can evaluate as well, all kinds of consumer goods. We have GC, LC, and ICP instrumentation for this purpose. Currently, we are developing a couple of projects, both of them related to the safety of food contact materials according to the European legislation.

One of them is to develop a methodology to detect and quantitate organotin in food contact materials using LC-QTOF and LC-ICP-MS. It is a very challenging task due to the lack of previous methodologies. The other is related to the risk assessment of NIAS, which are non-intended added substances, are chemical substances that can migrate to the food from food contact materials.

It's very important to evaluate the risk because of the unknown chemical dangers of these substances. My overall goals at AIJU are twofold. On the one hand, to get the most performant of the instrumentation as possible.

On the other hand, to develop new methodologies to keep the analysis that we perform up to date. It is a principal task due to the legislation. It becomes more restrictive year by year lowing the limits of detection and quantification. History shows us the importance of checking all kinds of products that reach the market.

We must analyze the market products to get the confidence that any product has no harm. We must test the security of bi-goals, food, and foodstuff, and of course, the products targeted to the most vulnerable, the children. Quality control is the tool that helps to reach this aim.

Finally, we can enjoy safer products. As I said before, the legislation becomes more restrictive year by year, which means, lower detection limit and lower quantitation limit, as well as include new chemical compounds. We evaluate the chemical composition of the children's product and the food contact materials. In my job, I need to perform-enhance in research to optimize tests and include these new compounds.

I check our methodology looking for potential points to optimize. It is very important to be up to date. I am to get the very best methods to quantify and detect all chemical substances. It means to get the most robust, sensitive, and accurate results. In chromatography, there is a high number of parameters to take into account. Parameters like mobile phase, components, column length, stationary phase, modifiers, and so on.

My goal is to form the perfect combination of all of these components to get the best results on each sample. Mass spectrometry plays an important role. Mass Selective Detector gives us analytical confidence. It is a powerful tool.

Mass spectrometry allows us to detect at the lowest level of concentration. We use this technique coupled to gas and liquid chromatography. This way, we can assess the safety of consumer products and their daily in-force regulation. LC/MSD iQ specifically allows us to evaluate the azo-dyes in fabric samples. It was easier to implement than I thought because of the very simplicity of its working. It is easy to use, it is very robust, and it is sensitive enough for this purpose. The future landscape for the safety testing of consumer products is clear. The regulation will push the limits of detection quantitation down.

It is due to the technical capabilities of instrumentation will increase in the future. Currently, there is the instrumentation that allows us to detect ppt or ppq in some cases. The legislation will evolve to adjust its limits as more and more research works show us the new toxicity of data chemical compounds.

Consumer health is the principal value we have to keep in mind because of concern to all of us. We will be prepared to face the new challenge coming in the future.

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