Investigation and determination of acrylamide in the main group of cereal products using advanced microextraction method coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

Cereal products as the main group of food diet have most important effect on human health. Acrylamide as a dangerous toxic compound has highly potential to be form in carbohydrates and proteins-rich foods at high temperature. In this research, we have successfully analyzed the amount of acrylamide in the important group of cereal products. Efficient, sensitive and selective microextraction technique has been applied to extract acrylamide from cereal samples. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry has been employed as powerful analytical instrument in the quantitation step. Parameters on the extraction procedure were studied and optimized using central composite design. The calibration curves showed high linearity (R2 = 0.998) in the range of 1–500 ng g−1. Limit of detection and limit of quantitation were obtained 0.6 ng g−1 and 2 ng g−1, respectively. The average acrylamide levels for wafer, traditional flat bread, biscuit, cracker, cake, cookie and industrial leavened bread were 233.94, 218.26, 200.67, 190.50, 186.39, 156.10 and 100.22 ng g−1 respectively. The acrylamide content in all tested sample was higher than 100 ng g−1. Wafer samples showed the highest amount of acrylamide. The composition of cereal sample and baking time and temperature have directly affected on acrylamide level in sample.