Background and Objectives: In the production process of foods rich in carbohydrates and some other foods containing precursors of acrylamide formation, there is the possibility of acrylamide creation, which is a mutagen and carcinogen material. This study aims to introduce and optimize a new method for determining acrylamide in potato chips using xanthydrol as a derivative representative with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.

Materials and Methods: Important factors in the derivatization and measurement processes were optimized using the one-factor-at-a-time method. The peak areas were assumed as the GC-MS response to evaluate the extraction efficiency of acrylamide, and optimization for all tests was performed two times. Figures of merit of the proposed method were evaluated. The amount of acrylamide in four potato chips samples, obtained from the market in Tehran city, was determined using the proposed method.

Results: The optimum amounts of effective parameters, including derivatization temperature at 25^oC, derivatization time (40 min), xanthydrol volume (40 µL), extracted solvent volume (500 µL) and pH=7 were determined. The figures of merit for the proposed method were at the ideal range. The maximum and minimum amounts of acrylamide in the chip samples were also measured.

Conclusions: The performance and reliability of proposed method as a simple, efficient and rapid method for determining acrylamide in potato chip samples were demonstrated.