DETERMINATION OF POLYCYCLIC AROMATIC-HYDROCARBONS IN WATER AND WATER-BASED ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES

This paper proposes a simple HPLC method for the determination of poly cyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in water, wine and beer. Samples w ere purified by PAH collection in solid-phase extraction (SPE) and ana lysed by reversed-phase HPLC (Supelcosil LC-PAH column from Supelco). For the beer sample, recoveries amounted to 28% for naphthalene and va ried from 57% to 103% for the other PAHs; results are quantitative sta rting from fluoranthene (FI, the seventh component eluted). Almost all the beer and wine samples showed the presence of benzo(b)fluoranthene (BbF), benzo(k)fluoranthene (BkF), benzo(a)pyrene (BaP), benz(ghi)per ylene (BghiP) and indeno(1,2,3-cd)pyrene (IF), and in some cases there were traces of FI, benzo(a)anthracene (BaA) and dibenz(ah) anthracene (DBahA). Total contents of PAHs ranged from trace amounts to 0.72 ppb . Traces of BbF, BkF, BaP, BghiP and IP were also found in the wine sa mples.