Abstract

In this work, an analytical methodology was developed for determining polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in tea and coffee samples. The new analytical methodology uses a hydrophobic deep eutectic solvent (DES), consisting of a thymol and lidocaine mixture, for the extraction of the analytes under dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction. The extraction procedure was optimized considering several variables (extraction phase composition, sample volume, vortexing and centrifugation time). Under optimum conditions, an using ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection as instrumental technique, the limits of detection were 39 and 53 ng & BULL;L-1 in tea and coffee samples, respectively. The precision expressed as relative standard deviation was better than 6.3 %.The relative recoveries were in the 60.7-85.2 % interval. The proposed method was successfully applied to the analysis of tea and coffee samples. The levels found for the six carcinogenic PAHs are between 10-45 & mu;g & BULL;L-1 for tea infusions and 6-31 & mu;g & BULL;L-1 for coffee infusions. The methodology is defined as an excellent green method with a score of 80 using the analytical Eco-scale.