Development and validation of GC/MS method for simultaneous determination of 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in pork meat matrix

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>The major processes for introducing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in food are smoking and grilling of different products. But in addition, PAHs can permeate in the food chain due to their high lipophilicity and ability to be accumulated in specific tissue, through contaminated animal feed. Further, when some parts of these animals are marketed as food, the accumulated PAHs can go to the human organism. Some of them are classified as highly toxic, carcinogenic and mutagenic for animal and human organisms so they are under consideration of International and European legislation. This work reports development and validation of simple and fast GC/MS method for 16 PAHs determination. Comparison of two methods for sample preparation in pork meat matrix standard extraction/saponification procedure and modified QuEChERS method is also done. In addition, this paper report the calibration step of instrument and a recovery study for 16 PAHs in model pork meat, using modified QuEChERS procedure for sample pretreatment. The calibration step with accessible and suitable for use in real laboratory conditions internal standard (chrysene D<jats:sub>12</jats:sub>) is done in the range 10–100 ppb using toluene as solvent. The obtained results show very good linearity (R<jats:sup>2</jats:sup> = 0.99 to 1.00). For the recovery study six model samples were spiked with 16 PAHs and they all are subjected to QuEChERS procedure. The recovery is calculated and the obtained data (71–120%) is in a good correlation with requirements of international legislation. Finally, LOD values for all 16 investigated compounds of modified GC/MS method and for the instrument were determined.</jats:p>

Recent advances in the analysis of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in food and water

“…Two different studies were developed recently by Givechev et al [ 47 ] and Hung et al [ 15 ] for determination of 16 and 23 PAHs within 30 and 78 min in smoked pork and thin-sliced roasted pork, respectively, with both methods employing a QuEChERS technique, followed by GC–MS (SIM mode) using a SLB-5MS column (30 m × 0.32 mm ID, film thickness 0.25 μm) for the former and GC–MS/MS using a DB-5MS column (15 m × 0.25 mm ID, film thickness 0.25 μm) for the latter with splitless injection. Comparatively, although the former method employed Soxhlet and saponification extraction steps prior to QuEChERS and an internal standard Chrysene-D 12 used for quantification, a lower LOD (0.03–0.3 ng/mL) and LOQ (0.1–0.9 ng/mL) as well as higher recovery (81.2–98.3%) was shown by the latter method with a minimum matrix effect ranging from 1.18 to 1.80 ( Table 2 ), which should be due to the more efficient QuEChERS and higher sensitivity of the GC–MS/MS method [ 15 ].…”

Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons’ Impact on Crops and Occurrence, Sources, and Detection Methods in Food: A Review

“…GC is a popular chromatographic technique for PAHs' detection in food matrices since PAHs are thermally stable and the majority are volatile and readily vaporized. PAH analyses using GC are accompanied by detectors such as MS [159,161,[168][169][170][171][172][173], MS/MS [154,[174][175][176], FID [121,160,162,163], or high-resolution MS (HRMS) [57,85,177] Nevertheless, more recent studies tend to utilize MS combined with GC to detect PAHs in food as it offers better method sensitivity, selectivity, and identification abilities compared to FID, and is more convenient and cost-effective than MS/MS and HRMS. In some nations, GC-MS is a component of national standard methods for the determination of PAHs in different food categories (e.g., cereals/cereal products, meats/meat products, and aquatic foods/aquatic food products) [178].…”

Optimized Derivation of Predicted No-Effect Concentrations (PNECs) for Eight Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) Using HC10 Based on Acute Toxicity Data

“…Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a class of neutral or non-polar hydrocarbons formed by the linear, angular, or cluster-like linkages of two or more benzene rings [ 1 ]. More than 200 PAHs are widely distributed in various environments [ 2 ], the main sources of which are the incomplete combustion of organic matter such as fossil and biomass fuels [ 3 ] and rock-forming processes [ 4 ]. Due to surface runoff, atmospheric deposition, and wastewater discharge [ 5 ], PAHs are widely distributed in water bodies all over the world, with concentrations ranging from μg/L to ng/L.…”