Square Wave Voltammetric detection of furan on platinum and platinum-based screen printed electrodes

Furan, a volatile oxygen heterocyclic compound, is classified as a possible human carcinogen by International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC, 1995). Together with its derivatives (furaldehyde, furfuryl alcohol), furan, which is responsible of the flavour of many foods, is formed by commercial or domestic heat treatment in canned, jarred and roasted foods [1], when thermal degradation of carbohydrates, such as glucose, lactose and fructose takes place. Coffee, canned meat and toasted bread appear to be the major dietary furan source for human beings [1]. Particularly worrying is the content of furan in jarred baby foods, which may constitute the sole diet of many infants [1]. Very recently, the European Food and Safety Authority (EFSA), the US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) and the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health, published several reports [1-3] on the occurrence of furan in food and on the available analytical methodologies. In these reports, the scarce available data indicate that this is an emerging issue in food safety and that there is a relative small difference between possible human exposures and the doses in experimental animals that produce carcinogenic effects. However, a reliable risk assessment would need further data and also new improved analytical methodologies. Electroanalytical techniques and particularly those based on pulsed voltammetry, which are particularly suitable for trace analysis, constitute an interesting alternative to the present available analytical methodologies in terms of very high sensitivity, low response time, small dimensions and low costs, in the challenge of the identification and quantification of this compounds in food and beverages. Moreover, these techniques can be conveniently used on-line and on-site, without sample pre-treatments, and may constitute an interesting, reliable and low-cost choice to be used as electrochemical detectors for chromatography. In this presentation, a Square Wave Voltammetric determination of furan in acetonitrile, using a platinum disk electrode or Pt-based Screen Printed Electrodes (Pt-SPE) is proposed. Linearity range, accuracy, precision, selectivity and specificity, quantification and detection limits of the new methodology have been duly evaluated. [1] Technical report of EFSA prepared by Data Collection and Exposure Unit (DATEX) on “Monitoring of furan levels in food”. The EFSA Scientific Report 304 (2009) 1-23. [2] US FDA, Report on Exploratory Data on furan in food (2004) 1-11. [3] Swiss Federal Office of Public Health, Report on Furan in Lebensmitteln (2004).