Concentrations and Health Risk of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Some Brands of Biscuits in the Nigerian Market

Abstract

Concentrations of 16 priority polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were determined in 40 brands of biscuits in the Nigerian market. The analyses were performed by gas chromatography-flame ionisation detection (GC-FID) after Soxhlet extraction of the sample with hexane/dichloromethane and clean-up of the extract. The concentrations of Σ16 PAHs in these biscuit samples were in the range of 35.7–645.3 μg kg−1, 75.9–490.7 μg kg−1, 91.5–537 μg kg−1, 18.4–522.2 μg kg−1, 123.5–393.8 μg kg−1, 167.2–880 μg kg−1, 136.5–316 μg kg−1, and 135.5–241.6 μg kg−1 for shortcake, digestives, cookies, shortbread, wafers, crackers, Pringles, and cabin, respectively. The concentrations of Σ8 carcinogenic PAHs in the samples ranged from not detected (nd)–323.3 μg kg−1, 15.7–138 μg kg−1, 9.7–312.9 μg kg−1, nd–331.7 μg kg−1, nd–220.9 μg kg−1, nd–53.3 μg kg−1, 18.4–56.6 μg kg−1, and 6.6–170.8 μg kg−1 for shortcake, digestives, cookies, shortbread, wafers, crackers, Pringles, and cabin, respectively. The margin of exposure (MOE), based on PAH8 as an indicator for the occurrence and effects of PAHs in food, was less than 10,000, the serious health effects value, in 30% and 8% of the brands for the child and adult scenarios, respectively.