Screening Marination and Irradiation for PAH Mitigation in Charcoal-Grilled Carp

This study screened marination and irradiation pretreatments and grilling conditions for mitigating polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in carp, with the aim of informing process development for the Wanzhou grilled-fish industry. Ninety fish were used in three sequential experiments: pretreatment screening (30 fish), grilling temperature (24 fish), and grilling time (36 fish). Each condition included three independent fish, and no fish were shared between conditions or experiments. Curcumin, tea polyphenols, and riboflavin were tested at concentrations of 5, 10, and 20 μmol/L, followed by wavelength-specific irradiation; the water/ethanol-marinated control (CK) was not irradiated. At 240 °C for 12 min, the 10 μmol/L curcumin treatment with 420 nm irradiation (CUR10-420 nm) had the lowest mean concentrations of the sum of 16 target PAHs (PAH16) and the sum of four marker PAHs (PAH4) among the screening groups, at 5.61 and 0.35 μg/kg, respectively, compared with 8.41 and 0.81 μg/kg in the control. This treatment was selected for the subsequent experiments. At a fixed grilling time of 12 min, lower mean PAH16 was observed with curcumin at 200 and 240 °C, whereas the treated mean was slightly higher at 280 °C and close to CK at 320 °C. At 240 °C, PAH16 increased with grilling duration in both groups. The largest relative reduction occurred at 8 min, although the lowest concentrations occurred at 4 min. These findings identify candidate pretreatment and processing conditions for further validation; they do not establish an optimal industrial temperature-time combination or a safe cooking duration.