Determination of volatile nitrosamines in various meat products using comprehensive gas chromatography–nitrogen chemiluminescence detection

An optimized method was developed for the extraction, pre-concentration and analysis of nitrosamines (NAs) in various meat products. Values of reproducibility, linearity, limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantitation (LOQ) for six NA standards (N-nitrosodimethylamine, N-nitrosodiethylamine, N-nitrosodi-n-propylamine, N-nitrosopyrrolidine, N-nitrosopiperidine, N-nitrosodi-n-butylamine) were determined. The LODs using this method were between 1.66–3.86 and LOQs between 6.96–16.71 μg L−1. The screening of four different types of meat samples (sausage, salami, sucuk and doner kebab) showed that all samples contained levels of various NAs, identified with high confidence using comprehensive gas chromatography (GCxGC) and a fast responding element specific nitrogen chemiluminescence detector (NCD). The sum of the six NAs were highest in the doner kebab samples, being between 0.51–16.63 μg kg−1 and were lowest in the sausage samples at 0.45–2.93 μg kg−1. The described method is simple, rapid, selective and sensitive.