IN Brief:
- Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons remain a concern for heat-treated, smoked, grilled, roasted, and oil-rich food products.
- Modified QuEChERS methods are being used to improve sample preparation for PAH detection across varied food matrices.
- Faster, lower-solvent analytical workflows could support more routine contaminant testing in food safety laboratories.
Seoul National University of Science and Technology researchers are advancing modified QuEChERS methods for detecting polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in food.
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, can form during high-temperature cooking, smoking, roasting, grilling, drying, and some oil-processing operations. Several PAHs are subject to food safety scrutiny because of their carcinogenic potential, making reliable detection important for smoked fish, grilled meats, edible oils, cereals, and heat-treated ingredients.
QuEChERS, short for quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe, is widely used in pesticide residue testing and is now being adapted for other contaminants. Modified workflows can simplify extraction and cleanup before instrumental analysis, reducing the time, solvent use, and labour associated with conventional sample preparation.
Recent work has applied modified QuEChERS approaches to retail food samples and cereal products. Studies using QuEChERS-based sample preparation with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry have identified higher priority PAH levels in products such as smoked and dried fish, soybean oil, duck meat, and canola oil, depending on the food matrix and processing history.
Joon-Goo Lee, professor at Seoul National University of Science and Technology, said: “By improving methods for PAH testing, we can help strengthen food safety management systems, reduce costs, and improve working conditions in laboratories.”
For food manufacturers, PAH monitoring is closely tied to process control. Smoking conditions, fuel source, fat drip, air flow, drying time, oil quality, roasting profile, and surface exposure can all influence contaminant formation. Testing therefore supports more than final product release; it can also help validate process changes, supplier controls, and thermal treatment conditions.
Smoked and grilled products remain the most obvious applications, but the analytical challenge is wider. Edible oils, cereal ingredients, roasted products, seasonings, dried foods, and composite meals can all create complex sample matrices. Fat, protein, carbohydrate, moisture, and colour can interfere with extraction and analysis, making efficient sample preparation essential.
Laboratory throughput is becoming part of food safety capacity. Conventional contaminant testing can be solvent-heavy and time-consuming, placing pressure on trained analysts and slowing decisions when products have short shelf lives. A faster extraction and cleanup route gives laboratories more room to test across wider product ranges, provided the method is validated for the matrix and regulatory context.
The method development also reflects a wider move towards risk-based chemical contaminant monitoring. Physical hazards and microbial controls often receive more immediate factory attention, but chemical contaminants require an equally disciplined understanding of process conditions. PAH formation is linked to heat, combustion, smoke exposure, and fat behaviour, so analytical results need to feed back into production settings rather than sit only in compliance records.
Modified QuEChERS methods may also support more sustainable laboratory practice. Lower solvent use, simpler workflows, and reduced manual handling can improve both cost and working conditions. Those gains become more valuable when a laboratory is handling large numbers of samples or working across diverse product categories.
Method validation will remain decisive. Food businesses cannot rely on faster testing unless recovery rates, precision, detection limits, and matrix performance meet the required standard. The strongest role for QuEChERS-based PAH workflows is therefore likely to be in validated laboratory systems where speed and cleaner preparation can be combined with robust instrumental analysis.
As thermal processing, smoking, roasting, and oil use remain central to many food categories, PAH control will continue to depend on both factory practice and analytical capability. Better sample preparation will not eliminate contaminant risk, but it can make routine monitoring more practical, helping manufacturers connect process knowledge with defensible food safety data.