Chemical fingerprint-profiling method

To detect adulteration of wine. Bums et al. (2002) found that the ratios of acetylated to p-coumaroylated conjugates of nine characteristic anthocyanins served as useful parameters to determine grape cultivars for a type of wine. Our laboratory utilized mid-infrared spectroscopy combined with multivariate analysis to provide spectral signature profiles that allowed the chemically based classification of antho-cyanin-containing fruits juices and produced distinctive and reproducible chemical fingerprints, making it possible to discriminate different juices. " This new application of ATR-FTIR to detect adulteration in anthocyanin-containing juices and foods may be an effective and efficient method for manufacturers to assure product quality and authenticity. 

SPME, coupled with GCMS, has been used to characterize impurities in illicit methamphetamine samples placed in a sealed headspace vial (70). This method works well for generating material fingerprint profiles in methamphetamine samples. The detection and characterization of increased points of comparison by this method as compared to a conventional solvent extraction provides more detailed chemical signatures for both intelligence and operational information. 

Fig. 15.14 Analytical techniques for time-resolved headspace analysis. An electronic nose can be used as a low-cost process-monitoring device, where chemical information is not mandatory. Electron impact ionisation mass spectrometry (EI-MS) adds sensitivity, speed and some chemical information. Yet, owing to the hard ionisation mode, most chemical information is lost. Proton-transfer-reaction MS (PTR-MS) is a sensitive one-dimensional method, which provides characteristic headspace profiles (detailed fingerprints) and chemical information. Finally, resonance-enhanced multiphoton ionisation (REMPI) TOFMS combines selective ionisation and mass separation and hence represents a two-dimensional method. (Adapted from [190])...

For the assessment of the contribution of the emission categories to the observed NMVOC concentrations the Chemical Mass Balance (CMB) modelling technique, version 8 from United States Environmental Protection Agency (Watson et al., 1998 Watson et al., 2001) was selected. The method uses source specific ratios between the emission rates of certain set of compounds and aims to recognise these fingerprints, or soiuce profiles, in the profile measured at the receptor point. As a result the CMB model delivers contributions from each source type to the total ambient NMVOC and individual hydrocarbon species at receptor points and their uncertainties. 

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