Original article Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in raw cane sugar (rapadura) in Brazil Flavio Soares Silva a , Joyce Cristale a,1 , Maria Lucia Ribeiro b , Mary Rosa Rodrigues de Marchi a, * a Analytical Chemistry Department, Institute of Chemistry, UNESP – Univ Estadual Paulista, P.O. Box 355, Araraquara, SP 14801-970, Brazil b Araraquara Universitarian Center, Master Course in Regional Development and Environment, Rua Carlos Gomes, 1338 Araraquara, SP 14801-340, Brazil 1. Introduction Rapadura is the commercial name for unrefined dehydrated cane-sugar juice, which is generally dried in the form of a brick. Rapadura is considered a basic food for the National School Meals Program of the Brazilian Federal Government (PNAE), and 37 million meals containing this raw sugar are served daily to public- school children (Weis et al., 2004). An estimated 13 million tons of rapadura are produced annually, in 25 countries. India is the main producer (55% of world production), followed by Colombia (11%). Brazil is the second-largest producer in Latin America, and rapadura is a major source of income for many farm families (Rodriguez et al., 2007). This product is produced mainly by traditional methods on sugarcane plantations in northern and northeastern Brazil (Gaspar, 2003). Rapadura production is a crude manual process that includes washing and removing the fibers from the cane, grinding to extract the juice, followed by filtering and then concentrating the juice by heating it, until it solidifies and can be packaged (Nascimento, 2007). During production, carcinogenic and mutagenic compounds such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) can enter this food. Possible sources include burning the sugarcane in the fields (Zamperlini et al., 2000), mechanized harvesting (Holliger et al., 1997), grinding of the cane which may contaminate it with oils and waxes (Akhlaq and Gotze, 1994), smoke process (Wretling et al., 2010), and packaging materials (Camargo and Toledo, 2002). At harvest season, the canes are usually burned in the fields in order to facilitate manual harvesting and to increase the sugar content by weight due to water evaporation (Zamperlini et al., 2000). Studies conducted in Brazil have suggested that sugarcane burning is an important source of PAHs emission (Azevedo et al., 2002; Camargo and Toledo, 2002; Tfouni et al., 2009; Zamperlini et al., 2000), and this burning has been associated with the presence of these contaminants in burned sugarcane and its by products (Serra et al., 1995). PAHs constitute a large class of organic compounds containing two or more fused aromatic rings. Hundreds of individual PAHs may be formed during incomplete combustion or pyrolysis of organic matter (FAO/WHO, 2005). These compounds occur as Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 24 (2011) 346–350 ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received 24 May 2010 Received in revised form 20 August 2010 Accepted 23 August 2010 Available online 8 December 2010 Keywords: PAHs Rapadura Optimization Validation HPLC Fluorescence detector Unrefined dried cane-sugar juice Food analysis Food composition ABSTRACT Rapadura is the commercial name for unrefined dehydrated sugarcane juice. Rapadura is produced in 25 countries, for an estimated total of 13 million tons per year. It is considered a basic food for the School Meals Program (PNAE) in Brazil, which serves 37 million meals to schoolchildren each day. During the production of rapadura, carcinogenic compounds including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) may enter this food. A simple and rapid method was optimized and validated for the determination of 16 PAHs in commercial rapadura by high performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection (HPLC-FL). PAHs were measured in 80% of the samples (n = 21) at levels ranging from 0.07 to 4.03 mg kg À1 . These data reveal a wide variability in PAH concentrations in the samples, indicated that sugar-cane burning and/or production are important for introduction of these contaminants into rapadura. In Brazil, there are no maximum acceptable PAH levels in this food. ß 2011 Published by Elsevier Inc. * Corresponding author at: Analytical Chemistry Department, Institute of Chemistry, UNESP – Univ Estadual Paulista, Rua Francisco Degni, s/n, P.O. Box 355, 14800-900 Araraquara, SP, Brazil. Tel.: +55 16 33019610; fax: +55 16 33019692. E-mail addresses: mssqam@iq.unesp.br, maryrmarchi@gmail.com (M.R.R.d. Marchi). 1 Current address: Institute for Environmental Assessment and Water Research (IDAEA-CSIC), Barcelona, Spain. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Food Composition and Analysis journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jfca 0889-1575/$ – see front matter ß 2011 Published by Elsevier Inc. doi:10.1016/j.jfca.2010.08.012