PAHs presence and source apportionment in honey samples: Fingerprint identification of rural and urban contamination by means of chemometric approach

Sergio Passarella; Ettore Guerriero; Luisangela Quici; Giuseppe Ianiri; Marina Cerasa; Ivan Notardonato; Carmela Protano; Matteo Vitali; Mario Vincenzo Russo; Antonio De Cristofaro; Pasquale Avino

doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2022.132361

PAHs presence and source apportionment in honey samples: Fingerprint identification of rural and urban contamination by means of chemometric approach

Food Chem. 2022 Jul 15:382:132361. doi: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2022.132361. Epub 2022 Feb 7.

Affiliations

¹ Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Food Sciences (DiAAA), University of Molise, via De Sanctis, I-86100 Campobasso, Italy.
² Institute of Atmospheric Pollution Research (IIA), National Research Council (CNR), Rome Research Area-Montelibretti, I-00015 Monterotondo Scalo, Italy.
³ Department of Agricultural and Forest Sciences (DAFNE), University of Tuscia, Via San Camillo de Lellis, I-01100 Viterbo, Italy.
⁴ Department of Public Health and Infectious Diseases, University of Rome "La Sapienza", p.le Aldo Moro 5, I-00185 Rome, Italy.
⁵ Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Food Sciences (DiAAA), University of Molise, via De Sanctis, I-86100 Campobasso, Italy. Electronic address: avino@unimol.it.

PMID: 35152011
DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2022.132361

Abstract

The quality of honey is assessed through the determination of some commodity parameters: a certain importance is to be attributed to the absence of contaminating residues, in particular of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs). This paper deeply investigates the presence of 22 PAHs in 57 honey samples collected in Central Italy and identifies the possible source apportionment and fingerprint identification by DLLME-GC-MS analysis and a chemometric approach. Cluster Analysis and Principal Component Analysis have allowed to identify the main PAHs responsible of the contamination, benzo[a]anthracene and phenanthrene, characteristics pollutants of areas constantly exposed. The entire database has been compared to similar ones present in literature, particularly data from Serbia and Belgrado samples. The PCA applied to overall the data confirms the combustion to be the main contamination source in Italian samples whereas highlights the importance of the role of naphthalene, added during beekeeping practices in the other data-set.

Keywords: Bioindicator; Cluster analysis; DLLME; GC–MS; Honey; PAH; PCA; Source apportionment.

MeSH terms

Chemometrics
China
Environmental Monitoring
Environmental Pollutants* / analysis
Honey* / analysis
Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons* / analysis

Substances

Environmental Pollutants
Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons