LABORATORY
Department of Food Chemistry & Analysis is a part of the Faculty of Food and Biochemical Technology, the research activities are focused mainly on:
  • Development / optimization of modern analytical methods – implementation of emerging technologies, improved performance characteristics in (ultra)trace analysis
  • Environmental contaminants – the fate in the environmental compartments, identification of emission sources
  • Contaminants / toxicants – occurrence in food crops, fate during processing, mitigation strategies
  • Natural biologically active components – identification in complex mixtures, formation pathways, changes during household / industrial processing and storage
  • Traceability of food origin (metabolomic profiling) – implementation of novel analytical fingerprinting tools to detect of authenticity of origin, production practice etc.
  • Organic farming – assessment of the quality (including flavour) and chemical safety, mitigation strategies
  • Chemical reactions in food - maillard reaction, lipids oxidation, flavoor formation
Collaboration with food industry is also an important part of applied research and comprises:

  • Testing of food quality and safety compliance to food law / regulations (products, raw materials, etc.)
  • Investigation of the transfer of persistent environmental pollutants (POPs) into food chain
  • Studies on the fate of food contaminants / toxicants during processing and storage
  • Detecting of fakes and food adulteration
  • Assessment of volatile profiles to identify compounds causing off–flavour or to detect markers of food origin
  • Support of HACCP systems (set-up and validation)
  • Optimisation of food processing technologies to reduce formation of processing contaminants

The ICT Prague team provides scientific advice to governmental institutions responsible for food quality and safety. Co-operation with National accreditation and metrological institute in the field of accreditation of testing laboratories, QA/QC, interlaboratory studies, reference materials and traceability of chemical measurements has been established in last decade. Testing laboratory of the Department of Food Chemistry and analysis is accredited according to the International standard ISO/IEC 17025:2005 by the CAI, signatory of the ILAC-MRA and participates regularly in proficiency testing (FAPAS, EU PT, IRMM, IAEA, etc.)

Certificate of Accreditation (PDF)

Laboratory equipment:

  • 2 GC Agilent 6890 with selective specific detectors (µECD, ECD, NPD) and autosamplers
  • 2 GC Agilent 6890 with mass selective detectors (MSD–quadrupole) HP 5973 and Agilent 5975, both with electron and chemical ionization and autosamplers
  • 1 GC Trace GC 2000 with mass selective detector (ITD) Polaris Q and autosampler Combi PAL / PTV; automated SPME unit attached
  • 1 GC Agilent 6890 with high-resolution TOF-MS detector (GCT Premier, Waters) and DMI injector system ATAS: FOCUS 4/Optic 3; automated SPME unit attached
  • 1 GC Agilent 6890 for comprehensive two-dimensional GC (GCxGC) with high speed TOFMS detector (Pegasus III, LECO Corp.) and autosampler MPS2; automated SPME unit attached
  • 1 GC Agilent 7890 with high speed TOFMS detector (TruTOF, LECO Corp.)
  • 2 gradient HPLC systems Agilent HPLC 1100 with FLD, UV and DAD, temperature control, autosamplers
  • 1 gradient HPLC rapid resolution systems Agilent HPLC 1200 with FLD, UV and DAD, temperature control, autosamplers (Hewlett Packard)
  • 1 LC–MSn system Spectronex LCQ DECA / HPLC separation unit Agilent 1100
  • 1 LC–MS/MS system Quattro Premier Waters / HPLC separation unit Alliance 2695XE
  • 1 UPLC Acquity with high-resolution TOFMS detector (LCT Premier XE, Waters)
  • 1 JEOL AccuTOF LC – plus high resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometer (JEOL) equipped with DART (Direct Analysis in Real Time) ion source (IonSense)
  • 1 Exactive, a benchtop LC-MS Orbitrap (Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., USA)
  • 1 AB SCIEX Triple Quad™ 5500 LC/MS/MS system (Applied Biosystems Inc, USA)