Efficient and rapid extraction of mineral oil from dry food represents
an important goal for control laboratories as well as research
purposes.
Two PLE methods, one for selective extraction of superficial
contamination (mainly migrated from the packaging), and the
other for total contamination from different sources have been
developed and optimised.
Some examples shows that, when used in combination on certain
pasta samples, the two methods may be helpful to understand
how the contamination is distributed in the product, and, in some
cases, allow to discriminate between pre-existing contamination
and contamination migrated from the packaging. Compared to
classical solvent extraction previously described, the PLE approach
requires less sample manipulation and is less time- and solventconsuming.