Contamination of foods with mineral oil hydrocarbons, particularly mineral oil aromatic hydrocarbons (MOAH), can potentially pose a health hazard to consumers. However, identifying toxic substances among the many thousands of compounds comprising mineral oils in food samples is a difficult analytical challenge. According to the European Food Safety Authority, there is a lack of concentration and structural data about mineral oil hydrocarbons in foods, and therefore it is not clear to what extent consumers in Europe might be exposed to toxic levels of MOAH. The current gold standard method for determination of mineral oil hydrocarbons is online high-performance liquid chromatography (LC)-gas chromatography (GC) with flame ionization detection, which quantifies total saturated/aromatic content, but gives no qualitative information. The objective of this review is to explore the future prospects in mineral oil hydrocarbon determination and MOAH characterization in foods. To that end, peer reviewed literature was explored, particularly from the viewpoint of a methodology for detailed characterization of the MOAH fraction that can aid toxicological assessment. The literature clearly shows that there is much to be gained from the orthogonality power of multidimensional chromatographic separations and mass spectrometric (MS) detection. Comprehensive two-dimensional GC coupled to MS, preceded by pre-fractionations of MOAH by LC is suggested to be the most promising approach for further research. In addition, the strengths and weaknesses of a number of other, alternative approaches, both for qualitative and quantitative analysis, are discussed.

矿物油碳氢化合物，特别是矿物油芳烃 (MOAH) 对食品的污染可能对消费者的健康造成危害。然而，在食品样品中包含矿物油的数千种化合物中鉴定有毒物质是一项艰巨的分析挑战。据欧洲食品安全局称，缺乏有关食品中矿物油碳氢化合物的浓度和结构数据，因此尚不清楚欧洲消费者在何种程度上可能接触到有毒水平的 MOAH。目前测定矿物油碳氢化合物的金标准方法是在线高效液相色谱 (LC)-气相色谱 (GC) 和火焰离子化检测，可量化总饱和/芳烃含量，但未提供定性信息。本综述的目的是探索食品中矿物油烃测定和 MOAH 表征的未来前景。为此，对同行评审的文献进行了探索，特别是从有助于毒理学评估的 MOAH 部分的详细表征方法的角度来看。文献清楚地表明，可以从多维色谱分离和质谱 (MS) 检测的正交能力中获得很多好处。综合二维 GC 与 MS 结合，然后通过 LC 对 MOAH 进行预分馏，被认为是进一步研究的最有希望的方法。此外，还讨论了用于定性和定量分析的许多其他替代方法的优缺点。