Furan and benzene are highly volatile, non-polar aromatic compounds that can be formed in food, for example coffee. These compounds are formed via oxidative or thermally driven mechanisms and are toxic for humans since they can cause cancer. Furan is formed mainly in low acid canned and jarred foods containing carotenoids, such as baby foods that require high thermal processing for food safety concerns.<br/>Volatile carcinogens are often identified using a gas-chromatograph mass spectrometer (GC-MS), an analytical technique combining the properties of a gas-chromatography instrument and a mass spectrometer. The gas-chromatography column separates the molecules within a sample. Each molecule is then eluted off from the column at different rates which allows the mass spectrometer to ionize the molecules. Each ionized molecule is detected using a mass to charge ratio, allowing to identify the components of the sample. Recently, the solid phase microextraction, also known as SPME, has been combined with GC-MS to obtain more accurate results in the identification of specific molecules, such as furan. This technique involves a fiber coated with an extraction phase. The analytes of the sample are absorbed by the fiber and can be then transferred to a GC-MS for identification. Volatile compounds such as the carcinogens of this study will migrate into the headspace and can be captured on the SPME fiber. Sample preparation is dramatically simplified.<br/>After consolidating a sensitive and reproducible technique to identify furan and its derivatives, baby food will be studied to limit the formation of carcinogenic compounds, for example by adding antioxidants.

Identification and quantification of carcinogen compounds in carotenoid foods through solid-phase microextraction gas-chromatography mass spectrometry 

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