A safer LED-excited spectrofluorometric platform for rapid determination of benzo[a]pyrene in edible oils

Benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) is a highly carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon that occurs in edible oils. We developed a surrogate-assisted automated fluorescence evaluation for rapid quantification (SAFER-Q) method for rapid determination of BaP in edible oils. The method uses a compact LED-excited spectrofluorometric platform and perylene (Pery) as a surrogate standard to reduce routine handling of BaP calibration solutions. The entire workflow from sample preparation to quantification is completed within 5 min/sample. Using corn oil for initial method development, the limits of detection and quantification were 0.15 and 0.51 μg/kg, respectively. Across nine edible-oil matrices, recoveries ranged from 87.5% to 103.9%, with relative standard deviations of 1.3%-14.3%. SAFER-Q showed acceptable agreement with high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection (HPLC-FLD) for the tested samples. The Analytical GREEnness (AGREE) score was 0.87, indicating favorable analytical greenness.