A recent investigation delved into the application of gas chromatography (GC) for evaluating relative response factors in quality control procedures for alcoholic beverages. The maintenance of high-quality standards in alcoholic beverages is crucial to the food and beverage industry, given the significant impact of alcohol on societal and cultural dynamics. This necessity for quality control (QC) measures in the alcohol industry prompted a study recently published in the Journal of Separation Science (1). Led by Radomir Cabala from Charles University, the research team conducted a comparative analysis of gas chromatography (GC) methods using Taguchi’s multifactorial approach (1). The study aimed to assess the variability of relative response factors (RRFs) employed in QC measures for alcoholic products (1). The study scrutinized two internal standard methods within GC: one utilizing ethanol and the other pentan-1-ol. Evaluation of RRFs for ten volatile substances specified by legislation was conducted across 27 different experimental conditions (1). The focus of the assessment included control factors such as ethanol content in the matrix, analyte concentration, injected volume, injector temperature, split ratio, and flame ionization detector temperature (1). Conclusively, the study found that the internal standard ethanol yielded superior outcomes compared to the alternative internal standard. The team reached this conclusion by varying these factors at levels representative of typical settings in measuring systems and reflective of the diverse alcoholic products routinely analyzed (1). Cabala’s research also investigated how these control factors influenced the repeatability of GC measurements, measured through relative deviation (1). This research contributes valuable insights to enhance QC practices in the alcoholic beverage industry. Cabala and the research team offer nuanced guidance on optimizing GC methodologies, facilitating more precise and reliable quality assessments (1).
Reference
(1) Korban, A.; Cabala, R.; Egorov, V.; Bosakova, Z. Variability of internal standard method calibration factors estimated with a multifactorial Taguchi experiment in the analysis of alcoholic products by gas chromatography with flame ionization detection. J. Sep. Sci. 2023, ASAP. DOI: 10.1002/jssc.202300492
