Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in high-consumption soft drinks and non-alcoholic beers in Iran: Monitoring, Monte Carlo simulations and human health risk assessment

The present study has focused on measuring the level of 16 PAHs in soft drinks and non-alcoholic beers and their health risk using the MSPE/GC-MS (magnetic solid-phase extraction and gas chromatography-mass spectrom-etry) method. The average of extraction recoveries (ER) was obtained between 73.048% and 99.879%. The mean concentration of n-ary sumation 16PAH and n-ary sumation 8PAHs were 0.702 +/- 0.078 ppb and 0.196 +/- 0.016 ppb in soft drinks and 1.315 +/- 0.199 ppb and 0.288 +/- 0.021 ppb in the non-alcoholic beer samples, respectively. The measured BaP for a soft drink (0.00856 ppb) and non-alcoholic beer (0.0197 ppb) were far below the U.S. EPA standard for drinking water quality (0.2 ppb). The TEQBaP of soft drinks (0.039 ppb) was lower than non-alcoholic beer samples (0.061 ppb). The Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) results showed the THQ 95th percentiles of PAHs for soft drink samples in the adult and children were calculated as 9.497E-04 and 2.221E-03, while these amounts for non-alcoholic beer samples in children and adults were 3.341E-03 and 1.430E-03, respectively. The incre-mental lifetime cancer risk (ILCR) values for adults and children were also 2.841E-07 and 1.328E-06 in soft drinks and 4.273E-07 and 1.996E-06 in non-alcoholic beer samples, respectively. The values of non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risks of the 16 PAHs in high-consumption soft drinks and non-alcoholic beers in Iran were in the acceptable ranges (hazard quotient < 1 and ILCR 10- 6).

Automated summary

The study measured the levels of 16 PAHs in soft drinks and non-alcoholic beers using the MSPE/GC-MS method and assessed their health risks. The concentrations of 16 PAHs in soft drinks were 0.702 ppb (n-ary sumation 16PAH) and 0.196 ppb (n-ary sumation 8PAHs), while in non-alcoholic beers, they were 1.315 ppb (n-ary sumation 16PAH) and 0.288 ppb (n-ary sumation 8PAHs). The Monte Carlo simulation results showed that the THQ 95th percentiles for soft drinks were 9.497E-04 (adults) and 2.221E-03 (children), and for non-alcoholic beers, they were 3.341E-03 (children) and 1.430E-03 (adults).