Tool Box for Product Safety: Modern Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry

Modern chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry is a powerful analytical tool to analyze and characterize regulated products based on the physical separation through chromatography and atomic/molecular characterization of the separated analytes. Gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS) are particularly applicable to the measurement of complex mixtures, assisted with proper pre-sample treatment. Particularly, LC-MS can be used as a screening, confirmation, and quantification tool for hundreds, or even thousands, of chemical components of the target matrices in one analysis. Advantages of LC-MS over other techniques, such as many traditional wet chemistry and biochemistry methods (i.e. gravimetric analysis, volumetric analysis) include selectivity, sensitivity, and high throughput. This issue in Journal of Regulatory Science focuses on several studies examining nutritional components and contaminants in food and dietary supplements. Liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry platforms have discovered the new applications in product safety testing, averting from the traditional medical and pharmaceutical field.https://doi.org/10.21423/jrs-v03n02pi (DOI assigned 8/7/2019