Journal of Food Processing & Technology

Monitoring of volatile organic pollutants in marine species of Mediterranean Sea

4^th International Conference and Exhibition on Food Processing & Technology

August 10-12, 2015 London, UK

Fabrizio Cincotta, Concetta Condurso and Antonella Verzera

Posters-Accepted Abstracts: J Food Process Technol

Abstract:

Chemical pollution is of special concern in the Mediterranean region due to its particular ecological and socio-economic
characteristics. Contamination of marine organisms from human activities can come from different sources either from activities
that are directly connected to the marine environment or from waste spread to the marine waters via land-based activities. Contaminants
such as heavy metals, PAHs, PCBs, dioxins which are known to bio-accumulate in marine organisms were widely studied and their
maximum levels in foodstuffs are set by the European Union Commission (Regulation N° 1881/2006). More volatile compounds
such as benzene, toluene, xylene, styrene, short chain chlorinated paraffins (C9-13) important to the production of polymers and
numerous consumer products such as solvents, paints, pharmaceutical, etc are less studied. Phthalate esters are also widely used in
various industries as alkylated resins, polymeric polyesters, plasticizers, etc and they were detected in sea water by various authors.
In this context our research reports the results on the determination of volatile organic pollutants in several species of Mediterranean
fish, crustaceous and mollusc. A HS-SPME-GC-MS method was developed for the extraction, identification and quantification of
the volatiles in the studied marine species. The following pollutants were quantified: Chloroform, dichloromethane, benzene and its
derivatives such as toluene, ethyl-benzene, trimethyl-benzene, ethyl-toluene, styrene, xylenes and phenol, hydrocarbons, chlorinated
and phthalates. Benzene and its derivatives and phthalates were present in all the analyzed species with the highest amount in
crustaceous and mollusk respectively whereas chlorinated paraffins prevailed in fish species.

Biography :

Fabrizio Cincotta is a PhD student in Biology and Experimental Medicine. His research is focused on volatile constituents in food by analytical techniques such as GC and
GC-MS and is carried out in the laboratory of Food Chemistry and Technology of the Chemical Science Department of the University of Messina, Italy.