Impact of cooking style and oil on semi-volatile and intermediate volatility organic compound emissions from Chinese domestic cooking

Abstract

To elucidate the molecular chemical compositions, volatility–polarity distributions, and influencing factors of Chinese cooking emissions, a comprehensive cooking emission experiment was conducted. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs), intermediate volatility, and semi-volatile organic compounds (I/SVOCs) from cooking fumes were analysed by a thermal desorption comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography coupled with quadrupole mass spectrometer (TD-GC × GC-qMS). Emissions from four typical Chinese dishes, i.e. fried chicken, Kung Pao chicken, pan-fried tofu, and stir-fried cabbage were investigated to illustrate the impact of cooking style and material. Fumes of chicken fried with corn, peanut, soybean, and sunflower oils were investigated to demonstrate the influence of cooking oil. A total of 201 chemicals were quantified. Kung Pao chicken emitted more pollutants than other dishes due to its rather intense cooking method. Aromatics and oxygenated compounds were extensively detected among meat-related cooking fumes, while a vegetable-related profile was observed in the emissions of stir-fried cabbage. Ozone formation potential (OFP) was dominated by chemicals in the VOC range. Of the secondary organic aerosol (SOA) estimation, 10.2 %–32.0 % could be explained by S/IVOCs. Pixel-based partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) and multiway principal component analysis (MPCA) were utilized for sample classification and component identification. The results indicated that the oil factor explained more variance of chemical compositions than the cooking style factor. MPCA results emphasize the importance of the unsaturated fatty acid-alkadienal-volatile products mechanism (oil autoxidation) accelerated by the cooking and heating procedure.