HISORB-GC×GC-QMS A POWERFUL MARRIAGE TO EXPLORE BREWED COFFEE VOLATILES

HiSorb is a relatively new high concentration capacity (HCC) tool introduced to fill the gap between the more common solid phase microextraction (SPME) and the stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE). SPME is widely used thanks to the easiness of use and the possibility to automate the entire process, oppositely from SBSE, which, despite a higher sensitivity requires additional manipulation since not easily automated. HiSorb provides an increased sensitivity due to the significantly higher sorbent volume along with easy automation. The increased trapping capacity was explored in comparison to traditional SPME and coupled to comprehensive gas chromatography- quadrupole mass spectrometry (GC×GC-qMS) equipped with a flow modulator to maximize the level of information extractable from the chromatographic fingerprint obtained from the volatile profile of brewed coffee. The HiSorb conditions were carefully optimized, exploring the additional multi-trapping capability provided by the autosampler and evaluating the results in both mono and multivariate approaches studying the cross-sample comparison of brewed coffee packed in different packaging materials. The use of a novel datamining and chemometrics software was exploited to automatic align the chromatograms and extract of useful untargeted information in a simple and straightforward way.