Hydrocarbons as marker compounds for irradiated cashew nuts

Volatile long chain hydrocarbons, such as 1-tetradecene, 1-hexadecene and 8-heptadecene, could serve as marker compounds in cashew nuts irradiated at 0.25–1.00 kGy. Monitoring these markers over a storage period of 6 months under ambient conditions showed them to be persistent. The concentrations of the markers increased linearly with radiation dose at all storage periods of the study. However, their concentration decreased marginally with storage at all the dose levels.