Concentration and health risk assessment of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in commercial tea and coffee samples marketed in Iran

Abstract

The aim of the current study was to evaluate the probabilistic health risk and the concentration of 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in commercial tea and coffee samples. For determining the mentioned contaminants in sixty-four samples, a reliable and sensitive technique was validated and developed. The technique is established on magnetic solid-phase extraction and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry analysis (MSPE/GC–MS). The maximum mean of ƩPAHs in coffee samples was 13.75 ± 2.90 μg kg⁻¹, while the minimum mean ƩPAHs in tea samples was 4.77 ± 1.01 μg kg⁻¹. The mean concentration of benzo(a)pyrene (BaP) in samples ranged from 0.64 to 2.07 μg kg⁻¹ which was lower than that of standard levels (10 μg kg⁻¹) established by the European Union (EU). The Monte Carlo simulation results showed that the actual target hazard quotient (THQ) for the adult and children was equal to 1.63E-04 and 1.67E-04, respectively; hence, non-carcinogenic health risk for consumers is negligible. The result of actual incremental lifetime cancer risk (ILCR) was lower than the limits of safe risk (1E-4), indicating no notable possibility of cancer risk due to the digestion of tea and coffee for children and adults. Therefore, it can be concluded that the amount of contamination of popular commercial coffee and tea available in the Iranian market with PAHs is often similar to that found in other countries and was lower than the standard of EU. Thus, the processing conditions of these products must be controlled to prevent the formation of PAHs due to the suspicion of carcinogenicity and mutation.