Benzene, a known carcinogen in humans was revealed to form in beverages by the metal-catalyzed radical formation of ascorbic acid (AA) and benzoic acid.  The legal limit of benzene, established by the EPA, in all consumed liquids is 5 ppb. Though many beverages have reformulated, other beverages may still contain benzene and possibly other volatile hydrocarbons.Previous work utilized purge and trap gas chromatography and solid phase microextration gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS).  However neither technique provided the speed or accuracy needed for large sampling study.  Headspace-trap GC-MS detects benzene at 5 ppb with less than 10% RSD and performs high throughput.Mechanistic studies have shown AA ranging 0-50mM produces benzene concentration at 982 ppb at 20mM AA.  It was also discovered that various concentration of d-isoascrobic acid (10 mM maximum) also influenced concentrations of benzene produced (283 ppb).  Additional experiments probing into the mechanistic study will also be presented.

Investigation of hazardous, volatile hydrocarbons in commercial beverages

244th National Meeting (2012)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.