Determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in artisanal cachaça by DI-CF-SPME–GC/MS

Abstract

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are carcinogenic to humans and can be found in a variety of environments. This paper describes a cold fiber (CF) solid-phase microextraction (SPME) sampling method with gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC/MS) to identify 16 PAHs in artisanal cachaça. The method yields good results for some validation parameters. The LOD and LOQ ranged from 0.01μgL−1 to 0.08μgL−1 and from 0.02μgL−1 to 0.22μgL−1, respectively. The intra-assay precision shows a coefficient of variation (CV) ranging from 5% to 16%, and the recovery tests varied from 74±12% to 95±7%. The proposed method was attractive as this method extracted higher amounts of PAHs in a single extraction procedure compared with conventional approaches. The method was applied to the analyses of PAHs in 29 artisanal cachaça samples collected in the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil. Average PAH concentrations in these samples were in the range of 0.14±0.06μgL−1 fluoranthene to 5.77±0.35μgL−1 dibenzo[a,h]anthracene. The benzo[a]pyrene equivalent (BaPeq) was calculated to assess the health risks associated with PAH exposure. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to discriminate between different sources of contamination in cachaça.