Determination of irradiation induced hydrocarbons in beef jerky by GC-MS

This study was aimed to analyze the effects of ionizing radiations on beef jerky through determination of induced hydrocarbons. the samples were irradiated with gamma and electron-beam at 0,1,3,5 and 7 kgy doses. the induced hydrocarbons were extracted by solid phase extraction (spe) and identified by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (gc-ms). the application of analytical technique was validated by linearity,limits of detection,correlation variance and spiking recovery experiments. the main hydrocarbons induced by irradiations were from palmitic acid (1-tetradecene and pentadecane),stearic acid (heptadecane and 1-hexadecene) and oleic acid (8-heptadecene and 1,7-hexadecadiene). stearic acid and oleic acid showed high degradation rate at α-carbon position,while cn-2 hydrocarbons were higher than cn-1. the formation pattern of induced hydrocarbons was similar in both gamma-ray and e-beam but their concentrations were variable. the hydrocarbons induced by irradiations were detected in all irradiated samples and remained absent in the non-irradiated controls. conclusively the detected hydrocarbons could be good marker compounds to determine the irradiated samples of beef jerky. © 2017,chemical society of pakistan. all rights reserved.