Food Analysis: Alcoholic Drinks

Ever since the various technological improvements have made the analysis of alcoholic drinks even easier, more rapid and perfected the level of accuracy.

One of these improvements was the introduction of the IONICON fastGC add-on. The relatively high abundancy of ethanol in wine combined with its high volatility results in ethanol headspace concentrations which can exceed the upper limit of IONICON's extremely sensitive PTR-MS instruments' dynamic range. Utilizing the fastGC add-on this problem is conveniently solved, because ethanol eluates from the fastGC column much earlier than virtually all compounds of interest. Thus, ethanol is separated from the important molecules which determine the flavor, character and quality of wine. Furthermore, there are several isomeric compounds which make up the wine aroma and which cannot be distinguished by mass spectrometry alone. IONICON's fastGC add-on enables the separation and individual quantification of these isomers via the click of a button.

For the characterization of large numbers of different wines and for rapid quality control in the wine industry the IONICON autosampler is the perfect solution. Only minute amounts of samples are required to be filled in vials. The rest of the analysis is fully automated, without the need of a human operator and – as a matter of course – without the need of any sample preparation.