TY - JOUR A1 - Epping, Ruben A1 - Bliesener, Lilly A1 - Weiss, Tilman A1 - Koch, Matthias T1 - Marker Substances in the Aroma of Truffles N2 - The aim of this study was to identify specific truffle marker substances within the truffle aroma. The aroma profile of different truffle species was analyzed using static headspace sampling with gas chromatography mass spectrometry analysis (SHS/GC-MS). Possible marker substances were identified, taking the additional literature into account. The selected marker substances were tested in an experiment with 19 truffle dogs. The hypothesis “If trained truffle dogs recognize the substances as supposed truffles in the context of an experiment, they can be regarded as specific” was made. As it would be nearly impossible to investigate every other possible emitter of the same compounds to determine their specificity, this hypothesis was a reasonable approximation. We were interested in the question of what it is the dogs actually search for on a chemical level and whether we can link their ability to find truffles to one or more specific marker substances. The results of the dog experiment are not as unambiguous as could have been expected based on the SHS/GC-MS measurements. Presumably, the truffle aroma is mainly characterized and perceived by dogs by dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide. However, as dogs are living beings and not analytical instruments, it seems unavoidable that one must live with some degree of uncertainty regarding these results. KW - Truffle KW - Volatile organic compounds; KW - Gas chromatography KW - Mass spectrometry KW - Canine olfactometry PY - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-556116 SN - 1420-3049 VL - 27 IS - 16 SP - 1 EP - 19 PB - MDPI CY - Basel AN - OPUS4-55611 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Epping, Ruben A1 - Koch, Matthias T1 - On-Site Detection of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) N2 - Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are of interest in many different fields. Among them are food and fragrance analysis, environmental and atmospheric research, industrial applications, security or medical and life science. In the past, the characterization of these compounds was mostly performed via sample collection and off-site analysis with gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS) as the gold standard. While powerful, this method also has several drawbacks such as being slow, expensive, and demanding on the user. For decades, intense research has been dedicated to find methods for fast VOC analysis on-site with time and spatial resolution. We present the working principles of the most important, utilized, and researched technologies for this purpose and highlight important publications from the last five years. In this overview, non-selective gas sensors, electronic noses, spectroscopic methods, miniaturized gas chromatography, ion mobility spectrometry and direct injection mass spectrometry are covered. The advantages and limitations of the different methods are compared. Finally, we give our outlook into the future progression of this field of research. KW - Volatile organic compounds KW - On-site detection KW - Mobile analytics KW - Sensors PY - 2023 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-570885 VL - 28 IS - 4 SP - 1 EP - 19 PB - MDPI CY - Basel, Switzerland AN - OPUS4-57088 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Epping, Ruben A1 - Panne, Ulrich A1 - Falkenhagen, Jana T1 - Power of ultra performance liquid chromatography/electrospray ionization-MS reconstructed ion chromatograms in the characterization of small differences in polymer microstructure N2 - From simple homopolymers to functionalized, 3-dimensional structured copolymers, the complexity of polymeric materials has become more and more sophisticated. With new applications for instance in the semiconductor or pharmaceutical industry, the requirements for the characterization have risen with the complexity of the used polymers. For each additional distribution, an additional dimension in analysis is needed. Small, often isomeric heterogeneities in topology or microstructure can usually not be simply separated chromatographically or distinguished by any common detector, but affect the properties of materials significantly. For a drug delivery system for example, the degree of branching and branching distribution is crucial for the formation of micelles. Instead of a complicated, time consuming and/or expensive 2d-chromatography or ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) method, that also has its limitations, in this work a simple approach using size exclusion chromatography (SEC) coupled with electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI) is proposed. The online coupling allows the analysis of reconstructed ion chromatograms (RIC) of each degree of polymerization. While a complete separation often cannot be achieved, the derived retention times and peak widths lead to information on the existence and dispersity of heterogeneities. Although some microstructural heterogeneities like short chain branching can for large polymers be characterized with methods such as light scattering, for oligomers where the heterogeneities just start to form and their influence is at the maximum, they are inaccessible with these methods. It is also shown, that with a proper calibration even quantitative information can be obtained. This method is suitable to detect small differences in e. g. branching, 3d-structure, monomer sequence or tacticity and could potentially be used in routine analysis to quickly determine deviations. KW - Polymer KW - Microstructure KW - UPLC KW - ESI-TOF-MS KW - Reconstructed ion chromatograms PY - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.7b05214 SN - 0003-2700 SN - 1520-6882 VL - 90 IS - 5 SP - 3467 EP - 3474 PB - ACS Publ. CY - Washington, DC AN - OPUS4-44423 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Epping, Ruben A1 - Falkenhagen, Jana A1 - Panne, Ulrich A1 - Hiller, W. A1 - Gruendling, T. A1 - Staal, B. A1 - Lang, C. A1 - Lamprou, A. T1 - Simultaneous characterization of poly(acrylic acid) andpolysaccharide polymers and copolymers N2 - Copolymer products that result from grafting acrylic acid and other hydrophilicmonomers onto polysaccharides have recently gained significant interest in researchand industry. Originating from renewable sources, these biodegradable, low toxicity,and polar copolymer products exhibit potential to replace polymers from fossil sourcesin several applications and industries. The methods usually employed to character-ize these copolymers are, however, quite limited, especially for the measurement ofbulk properties. With more sophisticated applications, for example, in pharmaceu-tics requiring a more detailed analysis of the chemical structure, we describe a newapproach for this kind of complex polymers. Our approach utilizes chromatographyin combination with several detection methods to separate and characterize reactionproducts of the copolymerization of acrylic acid and chemically hydrolyzed starch.These samples consisted of a mixture of homopolymer poly (acrylic acid), homopoly-mer hydrolyzed starch, and – in a lower amount – the formed copolymers. Several chro-matographic methods exist that are capable of characterizing either poly (acrylic acid)or hydrolyzed starch. In contrast, our approach offers simultaneous characterization ofboth polymers. The combination of LC and UV/RI offered insight into the compositionand copolymer content of the samples. Size exclusion chromatography experimentsrevealed the molar mass distribution of homopolymers and copolymers. FTIR inves-tigations confirmed the formation of copolymers while ESI-MS gave more details onthe end groups of hydrolyzed starches and poly (acrylic acids). Evidence of copolymerstructures was obtained through NMR measurements. Finally, two-dimensional chro-matography led to the separation of the copolymers from both homopolymers as wellas the additional separation of sodium clusters. The methods described in this work area powerful toolset to characterize copolymerization products of hydrolyzed starch andpoly(acrylic acid). Together, our approach successfully correlates the physicochemicalproperties of such complex mixtures with their actual composition. KW - 2D chromatography KW - LC-MS KW - SEC KW - Renewable copolymers KW - Grafting PY - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-508873 SP - 1 EP - 12 PB - Wiley-VCH Verlag-GmbH&Co. KGaA CY - Weinheim AN - OPUS4-50887 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Epping, Ruben A1 - Panne, Ulrich A1 - Falkenhagen, Jana T1 - Critical conditions for liquid chromatography of statistical copolymers: Functionality type and composition distribution characterization by UP-LCCC/ESI-MS N2 - Statistical ethylene oxide (EO) and propylene oxide (PO) copolymers of different monomer compositions and different average molar masses additionally containing two kinds of end groups (FTD) were investigated by ultra high pressure liquid chromatography under critical conditions (UP-LCCC) combined with electrospray ionization time-of flight mass spectrometry (ESI-TOFMS). Theoretical predictions of the existence of a critical adsorption point (CPA) for statistical copolymers with a given chemical and sequence distribution1 could be studied and confirmed. A fundamentally new approach to determine these critical conditions in a copolymer, alongside the inevitable chemical composition distribution (CCD), with mass spectrometric detection, is described. The shift of the critical eluent composition with the monomer composition of the polymers was determined. Due to the broad molar mass distribution (MMD) and the presumed existence of different end group functionalities as well as monomer sequence distribution (MSD), Gradient separation only by CCD was not possible. Therefore, isocratic separation conditions at the CPA of definite CCD fractions were developed. Although the various present distributions partly superimposed the separation process, the goal of separation by end group functionality was still achieved on the basis of the additional dimension of ESI-TOF-MS. The existence of HO-H besides the desired allylO-H end group functionalities was confirmed and their amount estimated. Furthermore, indications for a MSD were found by UPLC/MS/MS measurements. This approach offers for the first time the possibility to obtain a fingerprint of a broad distributed statistical copolymer including MMD, FTD, CCD, and MSD. KW - Polymer KW - Liquid chromatography at critical conditions KW - ESI-TOF-MS PY - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.6b04064 SN - 0003-2700 SN - 1520-6882 VL - 89 IS - 3 SP - 1778 EP - 1786 AN - OPUS4-39240 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -