Determination of Light–Medium–Heavy Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Vegetable Oils by Solid-Phase Extraction and High-Performance Liquid Chromatography with Diode Array and Fluorescence Detection

A new method for determination of 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)naphthalene, acenaphthylene, acenaphthene, fluorene, phenanthrene, anthracene, fluoranthene, pyrene, benz­[a]­anthracene, chrysene, benzo­[b]­fluoranthene, benzo­[k]­fluoranthene, benzo­[a]­pyrene, dibenz­[a,h]­anthracene, benzo­[g,h,i]­perylene, and indeno­[1,2,3-cd]­pyrenein vegetable oils was developed. Solid-phase extraction (SPE) prior to high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection could be used for all those PAHs except acenaphthylene. Acenaphthylene could be detected using a diode array detector at 228 nm. The parameters and variables that affect the extraction were investigated. Under optimum conditions: the extract reagent was centrifuged at 4 °C and evaporated. After that a SPE procedure was used for further cleanup. The limits of detection and limits of quantification were in the range of 0.01–2.35 and 0.04–7.00 μg kg–1 in vegetable oil, respectively. The relative standard deviations were under 5%.