Synthesis and application of ionic liquids to unveil the chemistry of fermentative processes

Abstract

In this research project, we propose the development of a technological solution to investigate the chemistry of fermented beverages by combining ionic liquids (IL), comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography (GCxGC), and chemometrics ('artificial inteligence'). Beverage analysis is a demanding task due to the overwhelming quantity of analytes with highly diverse chemical and physical properties that limits the application of traditional protocols. Analytical Chemistry has benefited from the incredible advances in technology of the past decades. Today, the development of highly efficient sorbent phases, capable of extracting a broad diversity of molecules, and the outcome of high-resolution instruments, which produces dense and intrinsically multivariate data, which challenges even the most veteran GC practitioner. Application of ionic liquids in microextractions of organic compounds are now highly effective, due to the unique solvation properties of IL. Also, GCxGC coupled to mass spectrometry (GCxGC-MS) has enabled improved peak capacity separations of many matrices, producing high quality measurements. Furthermore, artificial intelligence-based approaches using chemometric techniques are desperately required to manage and explore such big data. This orthogonal approach is likely the most efficient path for data mining to unveil the complex chemistry of fermentative processes and related applications. (AU)