Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Corn Grains

Contamination of crop plants with organic pollutants raises a growing interest in recent years; among the investigated pollutants, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are of special concern because some of them are toxic and carcinogenic. In this context, the main purpose of this research was to establish the degree of contamination of corn grains with the 16 priority PAHs under three experimental cultures' conditions: one with historical pollution, another located in an urban environment and a third reference one, located in an unpolluted area. Analytical determinations were performed by high performance liquid chromatography, highlighting the higher content of low molecular weight PAHs, mainly naphthalene, fluorene and acenaphthene; the high molecular weight PAH' contamination is mainly due to indeno[1,2,3-c,d]pyrene and dibenzo[a,h]anthracene.