
Paprika and Chili Powder
Even the Native Americans used paprika and chili powder not only to season various dishes, but also as a health-promoting remedy against osteoarthritis due to the ingredient capsaicin. Even today, the spice is still used for supportive pain treatment such as lumbago or migraines. The high vitamin C content can even improve circulatory disorders.
Chili and Paprika are among the most Aflatoxin or Ochratoxin A investigated spices. They are susceptible to infection by mycotoxin producing fungi at every stage of cultivation, harvest and storage.
CrossTOX® Multi-Mycotoxin Column
The CrossTOX® columns by LCTech allow a high efficient sample clean-up of all regulated plus expected mycotoxins in a single step. At the same time, the columns improve the conventional dilute-and-shoot process via an QuEChERS based procedure:
- High purity of extracts due to special sorbents for high matrix binding; no separate filtration; no additional filtration necessary
- Significantly less internal standard required due to special affinity mechanism of the columns
- Less cleaning and maintenance of your LC-MS/MS system due to the high purity of the extracts
- Only one column for a wide range of matrices
The columns are suitable for both manual and automated processing.
Processing Protocol
Homogenise 10 g of paprika/chili powder and extract the sample with 100 mL acetonitrile/water/acetic acid (84/15/1 (v/v)) and 50 mL n-hexane to remove essential oils and fats. For high extraction efficiency, continue the extraction for at least 10 minutes.
Filter the raw extract. A phase separation between n-hexane and acetonitrile-containing phase can be accelerated by centrifugation at 3000 x g for 5 minutes. Let pass 0.5 - 1 mL of the lower (n-hexane-free phase) slowly through the CrossTOX® column, collecting the cleaned sample using a GC-vial. A volume between 250 - 500 µL is sufficient to obtain a sample that contains a maximum depletion of matrix components.
Find more details, recovery rates, HPLC-conditions and chromatograms here.
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