A NEW METHOD FOR THE DETERMINATION OF SELECTED PAHs IN COFFEE BREW SAMPLES BY HPLC WITH FLUORIMETRIC DETECTION AND SOLID-PHASE EXTRACTION

Abstract

A rapid analytical method is proposed for the determination of PAHs (fluoranthene, pyrene, benzo[a]anthracene, chrysene, benzo[e]pyrene, benzo[a]pyrene, dibenzo[a,h]anthracene and benzo[g,h,i]perylene) in coffee brew samples. The method is based on solid phase extraction with Sep-Pak Vac tC-18 cartridges and elution with ethyl ether. The extracts were analyzed by RP-HPLC with a Green PAH column and fluorescence detection under an acetonitrile-water mobile phase gradient. Some PAHs were detected in the samples studied and their mean contents were 1.65–2.87 ng/L coffee brew. The relative standard deviations were in the range 2–13% for four replicates.