Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in milk powders marketed in Uruguay

ABSTRACT

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) occurrence in forty-four samples of milk powder, marketed in Uruguay, was determined. A high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method was applied with fluorescence detector (FLD) and UV-VIS diodes array detector (DAD). Milk powder was fortified with PAHs at three levels producing average recovery higher than 78.6% for all levels. The highest concentration of benzo(a)pyrene (BaP) was 2.85 μg kg⁻¹ in milk powder. Contamination of samples expressed as the sum of 16 analysed PAHs varied between 5.77 and 427.28 μg kg⁻¹ and as PAH4 (BaP, chrysene, benzo(a)anthracene and benzo(b)fluoranthene) was between below LOD and 11.54 μg kg⁻¹. Only one sample exceeded the maximum limit for BaP, but 84% of the commercial milk powders did not comply with the European Union maximum limit for PAH4.

KEYWORDS:

• Milk powder
• polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
• PAHs
• benzo(a)pyrene
• PAH2
• PAH4
• PAH8

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the UBA (Universidad de Buenos Aires), CONICET (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas), CIC (Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas de la Provincia de Buenos Aires) and FICTB (Fundación de Investigaciones Científicas Teresa Benedicta de la Cruz).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the UBA (Universidad de Buenos Aires), CONICET (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas), CIC (Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas de la Provincia de Buenos Aires) and FICTB (Fundación de Investigaciones Científicas Teresa Benedicta de la Cruz).