definition

Last update: 08/04/2024 [1]

Mineral Oil Hydrocarbons (MOH) are divided into MOSH (Mineral Oil Saturated Hydrocarbons: paraffin-like, open-chained, branched hydrocarbons (e.g. alkanes) and naphthenic cyclic hydrocarbons (cycloalkanes)) and MOAH (Mineral Oil Aromatic Hydrocarbons: hydrocarbons mainly consist of highly alkylated mono- and/or poly-aromatic rings). Each fraction contains more than 1000 constituents.

MOAH may include 3-7 PAC (polyaromatic compound) which are genotoxic and carcinogenic molecules. The 5 rings PAC displayed below is an example of 3-7 PAC potentially present in MOAH like benzo[a]pyrene:

A large variety of possible compounds may be summarized under these terms which can be detected as complex mixtures of saturated (aliphatic) or aromatic hydrocarbons in food. The following groups of materials play a role as so-called MOSH analogues.

However, it is not possible to distinguish analytically between MOSH, POSH, PAO and ROSH with the established methods. MOSH analogues result in elevated analytical values for MOSH. For the MOAH fraction, a co-elution with ROAH (resin oligomeric aromatic hydrocarbons from hot melt adhesives) might occur.

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