Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) in Olive Pomace Oil: Occurrence, Analytical Determination, and Mitigation Strategies

Environmental pollution, agricultural practices, climate change, and the various stages of edible oil production are responsible for oil contamination with various chemicals. Among vegetable fats, olive pomace oils (OPOs) have higher polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) contents, exceeding the limits in some cases. Several methods for the determination of PAHs in animal and vegetable fats and oils have been published over the years, but they have often failed to eliminate matrix-specific interferences in OPO. The few methods proposed or applied for the specific analysis of PAHs in OPO over the past 20 years are mainly based on two different analytical approaches, namely liquid chromatography-fluorescence detector (LC-FLD) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC–MS). In the case of the LC-FLD approaches, liquid–liquid extraction with appropriate solvents and one or more purification steps on stationary phases of different compositions are performed. In the case of GC techniques, on the other hand, the most commonly used sample preparation is liquid–liquid partitioning. Due to widespread public concern about PAH contamination, several studies have been conducted to explore ways to mitigate the presence of PAHs in OPOs (i.e., refining processes).