Determination of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Eggs Exposed to Fire Using a Simple and Efficient Method

The illicit burn practices on farms promote food contamination that is harmful and must be controlled by improved analytical methods. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which have high toxic and carcinogenic potential, can contaminate foods, mainly through fire exposure. Considering the toxicity of PAHs, development of sensitive, simple, and solvent-free methods to analyze PAHs in foods is necessary. This work presents the development of a new method to analyze PAHs in eggs using cold fiber-solid-phase microextraction (CF-SPME) and gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Parameters of temperature extraction, ultrasonic agitation time, sample mass, and modifiers were evaluated to obtain the best CF-SPME conditions. The new method uses a minimal amount of solvent and showed good linearity in the range of 0.0005 to 5.60 μg/g. Detection limits were from 0.0002 to 0.046 μg/g, and quantification limits were from 0.0005 to 0.152 μg/g. The method was applied to PAHs analysis of chicken egg samples from a farm near a site of an uncontrolled tire fire. The concentrations of PAHs in this study ranged from 0.926 to 1.668 μg/g. All PAHs were detected in the samples. The total toxicity was estimated by benzo(a)pyrene equivalent (BaPeq) and did not decrease significantly in the period (6 weeks) of sample collection.