Multi-residue analysis of organochlorine pesticides and carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in Jordanian olive oil using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry Studies on pesticides and PAHs in Jordanian olive oil

A new simple extraction method has been developed for determination 20 banned organochlorine (OC) pesticide residues and 16 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) priority pollutant polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) using gas chromatography equipped with a mass-spectrometric detector (GC-MS). Various extraction processes were studied, the final extraction method was applied by liquid-liquid partition using acetonitrile/acetone 6:4 (v/v) mixture. The concentrated extracts were subjected to C18 - Solid Phase Extraction cartridge for the cleanup step. The new extraction method was validated, and it gave satisfactory results in terms of a linear relationship, precision, detection limits, quantitation limits, and recovery. The developed extraction method was applied to multi-residue analysis for OC pesticide residues and 16 EPA PAHs in 27 real samples of olive oil were collected from different regions in Jordan during 2018. Among all OC pesticide residues, only 4.4-dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylen (4.4-DDE) was detected in the examined Jordanian olive oil samples. Estimated levels of PAHs ranged from 1.30 to 5.32 and 9.95 to 67.68 mu g/kg for PAH8 and 16 EPA PAHs, respectively; while Benzo[a]pyrene (B[a]P) not detected in all samples.