Over the last decade there has been a growing interest in low-calorie alternatives to carbohydrate-based sweeteners. Recent publications have shown a dramatic increase in attention toward natural extracts such as the Stevia rebaudiana plant, not only for its sweetening effect but also for additional health benefits attributed to the plant. The major sweetening components are stevioside, rebaudioside A, rebaudioside C, and dulcoside A, each of which is over 300 times sweeter than sucrose based sweeteners. Because of this they are widely used in beverages and foodstuffs.

The Accelerated Solvent Extraction system (ASE) uses elevated temperature and pressure to increase the efficiency of the extraction process. ASE automates and improves solvent extraction by significantly decreasing solvent consumption and extraction time. This application note describes the use of the ASE system for solvent extraction of five marker compounds from herbal preparations followed by analysis by HPLC. The results are compared to traditional pharmacopoeia extraction methods.

Excess sugar consumption is tied to poor health outcomes. Nutritional information including sugar amount is required in the Nutrition Facts label for all pre-packaged foods and drinks by The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act. A high-performance anion exchange method with pulsed amperometric detection (HPAE-PAD) has been developed to accurately determine the sugar concentrations. This record shows the determination of sugars in soft drinks using the Thermo Scientific Dionex Integrion system. This system allow fast determination of sugars with no eluent preparation or sample derivatization.

The Thermo Scientific TRACE GC Ultra is applied for the comparison of WCOT and PLOT columns for the GC/MS analysis of benzene in soft drinks. The equivalent Thermo Scientific columns specified in the FDA method were compared for their suitability in the quantification of benzene at low concentrations. The columns compared were the Thermo Scientific TRACE TR-V1, TracePLOT TG-Bond Q 15 m and TracePLOT TG-Bond Q 30m GC columns and full method details for these are in the application note PDF.

The Thermo Scientific TRACE GC Ultra is applied for the analysis of vanillin from a cola soft drink. The sample was prepared using Thermo Scientific SOLA HRP solid phase extraction (SPE) cartridges, and the separation was performed on a Thermo Scientific TraceGOLD TG-WaxMS A GC column, with flame ionization detection.