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.