Gas chromatographic determination of monoethylene glycol and diethylene glycol in chocolate packaged in regenerated cellulose film.

A method for the quantitative determination of monoethylene glycol (MEG) and diethylene glycol (DEG) in chocolate is described. The procedure involves dissolving the chocolate in hot water, defatting with hexane, removing sugars by precipitation, and analyzing as trimethylsilyl (TMS) ether derivatives by capillary gas chromatography. The use of butan-1,4-diol as an internal standard corrects for recovery, which is between 50 and 60%, to give a relative standard deviation of 10-11% for the determination of both glycols at the level of 50 mg/kg. The presence of MEG and DEG in chocolate is confirmed by full scanning gas chromatography/mass spectrometry of the TMS derivatives.