Supercritical fluid extraction and high-performance liquid chromatography–fluorescence detection method for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons investigation in vegetable oil

In spite of the fact that food processes, that involve drying and smoking, may cause polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon contamination, an extraction clean/up procedure carried out by SFE was developed in order to isolate polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from oil vegetable samples for subsequent HPLC–FL determination. The detection and quantification limits obtained were <1.55 μg kg−1 oil and <2.55 μg kg−1 oil, respectively, allowed to check the presence of seven of the eight PAHs with legal limit in olive–pomace oil: benzo[a]anthracene, benzo[e]pyrene, benzo[b]fluoranthene, benzo[k]fluoranthene, benzo[a]pyrene, dibenzo[ah]anthracene and benzo[ghi]perilene. In brief, the method permits the evaluation of edible oil safety and, therefore, consumers protection.