SUITABILITY OF THE ISO 13730:1996 METHOD FOR TOTAL PHOSPHOROUS QUANTIFICATION IN MILK AND MILK PRODUCTS

Abstract

Phosphorous can be found naturally in food but due to his useful properties, is also used as an additive in the meat and dairy industry as an inhibiting, stabilizing and emulsifying agent. The quantification and monitoring of total phosphorous in food is of high importance for food safety because high and unregulated intake can lead to cardiovascular and kidney diseases. Modern spectroscopic approaches yield high accuracy in total phosphorus quantification and can be divided into two methods based on the reagents used. One being the “molybdenum blue” method and the other being the “vanadate/molybdate yellow” method. The goal of this study was to investigate if the vanadate/molybdate method, described in the ISO 13730:1996 is suitable for accurate quantification of phosphorous in milk and milk products. The Proficiency test results with assigned value for Sample 1 of 213.7 mg/100 g and Z - score of - 0.46 and assigned value for Sample 2 of 198.8 mg/100 g and Z - score of - 0.59. This was followed by verification of the method by determining the standard deviation (SD) for each sample series, the repeatability (r), and expanded uncertainty (U). Results confirmed that the ISO 13730:1996 method is suitable for accurate quantification of total phosphorus content in both meat and milk matrixes. This unification of both matrixes directly contributes to lowering the costs of the analysis, the time needed to perform the analysis, and having excellent precision in quantifying the total phosphorus content, thus increasing the scope of application.