Pj. Nyman, DETERMINATION OF LOW NANOGRAM MILLILITRE LEVELS OF VOLATILE ORGANIC-COMPOUNDS IN ON-PURPOSE AND BY-PRODUCT HYDROCHLORIC ACIDS/, Food additives and contaminants, 13(6), 1996, pp. 705-715
Hydrochloric acid (HCl) is used in the food industry as a processing a
id in the manufacture of certain foods. HCl is manufactured, either di
rectly from inorganic sources, i.e. 'on-purpose' or indirectly as a by
-product from the production of organic compounds generally intended f
or non-food applications. By-product HCl potentially may contain trace
s of the manufactured product, its precursors, and other reaction by-p
roducts. Many of the potential contaminants are volatile organic compo
unds (VOCs) such as vinyl chloride and benzene. A study was conducted
to determine whether there were differences between the levels of VOCs
found in HCl samples collected from two on-purpose HCl manufacturers
and two by-product HCl manufacturers. Process water used to manufactur
e the HCl also was analysed. Twenty-nine VOCs were determined by purge
-and-trap concentration and capillary gas chromatography/mass spectrom
etry. Of these, nine were found in the process water and in both the b
y-product and on-purpose HCl samples at total VOC levels of less than
116 ng/ml. The levels of total VOCs identified in the two on-purpose H
Cl samples were 58 and 80 ng/ml; the levels of total VOCs identified i
n the two by-product samples were 41 and 115 ng/ml. The process water
appeared to be the source of most of the contaminants. These results s
how that the levels of VOCs found in the two types of acid are compara
ble.