Harnessing coconut shell waste: Innovative utilization of activated carbon for effective quantification and decontamination of dioxins in fish oil

Effective management of dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in food/feed matrices demands widespread surveillance and innovative decontamination strategies. This study investigates a cost-effective approach using coconut shell-based activated carbon (AC) as an efficient sorbent for two key applications: (i) facilitating the fractionation of dioxins and PCBs during routine analysis to improve surveillance and (ii) decontaminating these pollutants from feed-grade fish oil. The developed AC exhibited enhanced textural characteristics, transitioning from mesoporous to predominantly microporous structure. The adsorption studies unfolded the knowledge gap on congener specific trends, thereby leveraging critical inputs towards process development. The prepared AC was fabricated into a ready-to-use cartridge, compatible with column chromatography-based sample clean-up prior to analyte quantification. The methodology was critically validated according to European Union regulation 644/2017. Notably, the developed decontamination strategy demonstrated 85-100 % efficiency in fortified fish oil samples, with minimal impact on quality parameters, including oxidative stability, fatty acid profile, free fatty acid content and acid value.