Assessment of volatile phenol pollution in fish in Shenzhen

Objective To evaluate the volatile phenol contamination in freshwater and marine fish in Shenzhen.Methods 4-amiantipyrine calomnetric method and flow injection-spectrophotometric method were used to determine the concentration of volatile phenol in samples and ≤0.2 mg/kg was used as reference standard to judge the sanitary quality of fish.Results The average volatile phenol concentration of fish from marine and freshwater was 0.196 mg/kg and 0.045 mg/kg,respectively.Marine fish had higher concentration than freshwater fish(P<0.05).25.7% of marine fish had average concentration greater than the international standard(0.2 mg/kg)established by China National Standard Management Department.The white pomfret accounted for 85.7% of samples over the standard and the concentration was 2.7 fold higher than that of standard.The contamination of volatile phenol in freshwater fish was moderate.Volatile phenol was relatively high in carp(0.065 mg/kg)and low in weever(0.027 mg/kg).Conclusion Volatile phenol contamination appears to be potential threat to people's health.Related monitoring should be increased.