Quantitative analysis and health risk assessment of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in edible vegetable oils marketed in Shandong of China

This work studies on the quantitative analysis and health risk assessment of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in edible vegetable oils in Shandong, China. The concentrations of 15 PAHs in 242 samples were determined by high performance liquid chromatography coupled with fluorescence detection. The results indicated that the mean concentration of 15 PAHs in oil samples was 54.37 μg kg−1. Low molecular weight PAH compounds were the predominant contamination. Especially, the carcinogenic benzo(a)pyrene (BaP) was detected at a mean concentration of 1.28 μg kg−1, which was lower than the limit of European Union and China. A preliminary evaluation of human health risk assessment for PAHs was accomplished using BaP toxic equivalency factors and the incremental lifetime cancer risk (ILCR). The ILCR values for children, adolescents, adults, and seniors were all larger than 1 × 10−6, indicating a high potential carcinogenic risk on the dietary exposed populations.