Determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and their nitrated and oxygenated derivatives in coffee brews using an efficient cold fiber-solid phase microextraction and gas chromatography mass spectrometry method

Abstract Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are food contaminants; besides, their oxygenated (oxy-PAHs) and nitrated (nitro-PAHs) derivatives have also been detected in some foods. This is worrying because these derivatives may be more toxic than PAHs. This study presents a new method for the determination of PAHs and their oxygenated and nitrated derivatives in coffee brew. The analytes were extracted by cold fiber solid phase microextraction (CF-SPME) with analysis by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. The developed method presented good precision with intra-assay and inter-assay, ranged from 4.5 to 16.4%, and from 9.8 to 19.8%, respectively. Recovery ranged from 82.1 to96.3% and linearity showed good adjustment presenting determination coefficients (R 2 ) from 0.980 to 0.999. The limits of quantification ranged from 0.025 to 0.224 μg L −1 . The proposed method is simple, versatile, allows simultaneous extraction of PAHs, nitrated and oxygenated derivatives and was successfully applied to the analysis of commercial coffee samples. Benzo(k)fluoranthene, benzo(b)fluoranthene, pyrene, acenaphthylene and acenaphthene are the most abundant PAHs found in samples. In addition, 5,12-naphthacenequinone was the most abundant oxy-PAH and 1-nitropyrene was the most abundant nitro-PAH.