Cyclic voltammetry: a tool to quantify 2,4,6-trichloroanisole in aqueous samples from cork planks boiling industrial process

Abstract

Chloroanisoles, namely 2,4,6-trichloroanisole, are pointed out as the primary responsible of the development of musty off-flavours in bottled wine, due to their migration from cork stoppers, which results in huge economical losses for wine industry. A prevention step is the detection of these compounds in cork planks before stoppers are produced. Mass spectrometry gas chromatography is the reference method used although it is far beyond economical possibilities of the majority of cork stoppers producers. In this work, a portable cyclic voltammetry approach was used to detect 2,4,6-trichloroanisole extracted from natural cork planks to the aqueous phase during the cork boiling industrial treatment process. Analyses were carried out under ambient conditions, in less than 15 min with a low use of solvent and without any sample pre-treatment. The proposed technique had detection (0.31±0.01 ng/L) and quantification (0.95±0.05 ng/L) limits lower than the human threshold detection level. For blank solutions, without 2,4,6-trichloroanisole addition, a concentration in the order of the quantification limit was estimated (1.0±0.2 ng/L), which confirms the satisfactory performance of the proposed methodology. For aqueous samples from the industrial cork planks boiling procedure, intra-day repeatabilities were lower than 3%, respectively. Also, 2,4,6-trichloroanisole contents in the aqueous samples determined by this novel approach were in good agreement with those obtained by GC-MS (correlation coefficient equal to 0.98), confirming the satisfactory accuracy of the proposed methodology. So, since this novel approach is a fast, low-cost, portable and user-friendly method, it can be an alternative and helpful tool for in-situ industrial applications, allowing accurate detection of releasable 2,4,6-trichloroanisole in an earlier phase of cork stoppers production, which may allow implementing more effective cork treatments to reduce or avoid future 2,4,6-trichloroanisole contaminations of wine.

Keywords: 2,4,6-trichloroanisole; Cork; Cyclic voltammetry; Standard addition method.