Aromatic hydrocarbon residues in milk: preliminary investigation

A total of 35 samples of commercially obtainable milk were analysed, including whole, semi-skimmed and fully skimmed pasteurised milk and whole and semi-skimmed UHT milk, in order to assess quantitatively the presence and content of certain aromatic hydrocarbons deriving from environmental contamination. The analysis was performed using the purge and trap technique combined with gas chromatography (GC) and using a mass spectrometer (MS) as detector. Deuterated standards of the same aromatic hydrocarbons were used for determination of retention times and for quantitative evaluation. From examination of the data obtained and their subsequent statistical processing it seems clear that, although there are differences between some of the types of milk, the aromatic hydrocarbon content in the samples analysed was at rather modest levels in line with the values reported in the literature