Natural
ester-type gum bases, which are used worldwide as
food additives, mainly consist of wax
esters composed of long-chain
fatty acids and long-chain
fatty alcohols. There are many varieties of
ester-type gum bases, and thus a useful method for their discrimination is needed in order to establish official specifications and manage their quality control. Herein is reported a rapid and simple method for the analysis of different
ester-type gum bases used as
food additives by high-temperature gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). With this method, the constituent wax
esters in
ester-type gum bases can be detected without hydrolysis and derivatization. The method was applied to the determination of 10 types of gum bases, including
beeswax,
carnauba wax,
lanolin, and
jojoba wax, and it was demonstrated that the gum bases derived from identical origins have specific and characteristic total ion chromatogram (
TIC) patterns and
ester compositions.
Food additive gum bases were thus distinguished from one another based on their
TIC patterns and then more clearly discriminated using simultaneous monitoring of the fragment
ions corresponding to the
fatty acid moieties of the individual molecular species of the wax
esters. This direct high-temperature GC/MS method was shown to be very useful for the rapid and simple discrimination of varieties of
ester-type gum bases used as
food additives.