Fat extraction of milk powder and infant formula samples

In the dairy industry, the fat determination and extraction is not only a routine procedure in quality assurance and labelling also it is very important for contaminant determination, as e.g. PCBs, dioxins or pesticides.A procedure for fat determination in milk powder and infant formula samples is introduced. The samples are extracted by applying elevated pressure and temperature with the SpeedExtractor E-916. After drying the extract to a constant weight, the total fat content is determined gravimetrically.The samples are not hydrolyzed prior to the extraction - hence, the process time is reduced and chemicals saved. To validate this approach, fat determination was performed with a prior hydrolysis step.