A new analytical procedure has been developed to analyze 2-alkylcyclobutanones to detect
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ray-irradiated fat-containing foodstuffs. Samples were extracted with an accelerated solvent extractionsystem via hot and pressurized ethyl acetate in cells. A large amount of fat in the extract wasprecipitated and removed with filtration by standing at -20
C after the addition of acetonitrile. Theextract was further cleaned with a 1 g silica gel mini column, and the radiolytic compounds of2-docecylcyclobutanone (2-DCB) and 2-tetradecylcyclobutanone (2-TCB) were determined with gaschromatography with mass
spectrometry (GC/MS). Sample preparation time before GC/MS was 7-8h. At first, the procedure was evaluated with a recovery test in eight samples spiked with 2-DCB and2-TCB at 20 ng/g, resulting in 70-105% recoveries with mostly less than 10% relative standarddeviations. The procedure was further evaluated with beef, pork, chicken, and salmon samplesirradiated with
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rays from 0.7 to 7.0 kGy at -19
C. Both 2-DCB and 2-TCB in most samples weredetected with good dose-response relations at all doses, while salmon was detected more than 2kGy irradiation. The amounts of 2-alkylcyclobutanones produced reflected precursor fatty acids levelsin samples, especially for the combination of 2-TCB and stearic acid. The results indicated that theproduction rate of 2-TCB to stearic acid was more obvious than that of 2-DCB to palmitic acid infrozen samples with
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ray irradiation.Keywords: 2-dodecylcyclobutanone; 2-tetradecylcyclobutane;
(
gamma)-
ray; irradiation; food; accelerated solvent extraction; CG>MS; beef; pork; chicken; salmon; fatty acid