2,4,6-Trichloroanisole
(TCA) contamination of wine determines huge
economic losses for the wine industry estimated to amount to several
billion dollars yearly. Over 50 years of studies have determined that
this problem is often caused by TCA contamination of the cork stopper,
which releases TCA into the wine. The human threshold for TCA is extremely
low. A wine contaminated by 1–2 ng/L TCA can be perceived as
tainted. Contaminations with <0.5 ng/L TCA are commonly considered
negligible and are not perceivable. The possibility of prescreening
cork stoppers for TCA contamination would be an enormous advantage.
Therefore, the demand for a fast, nondestructive method capable of
quantifying the TCA contamination in cork stoppers is impelling. Vastly
used analytical methods have so far struggled to provide a fast and
reliable solution, whereas sensory analysis by trained panelists is
expensive and time-consuming. Here we propose a novel approach based
on chemical ionization–time-of-flight (CI-TOF) mass spectrometry
employing the “Vocus” ion source and ion–molecule
reactor. The technique proved capable of nondestructively quantifying
TCA contamination in a single cork stopper in 3 s, with a limit of
quantification below the perception threshold. A real test on the
industrial scale, quantifying TCA contamination in more than 10000
cork stoppers in a few hours is presented, representing the largest
data set of TCA analysis on cork stoppers within the literature and
proving the possibility to apply the technique in an industrial environment.
The correlation with standard methods for releasable TCA quantification
is also discussed.
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