Analysis and Health Risk Assessment of Sodium Benzoate and Potassium Sorbate in Selected Fruit Juice and Soft Drink Brands in Nigeria

Sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate are chemical preservatives commonly used in fruit juice and soft drinks. In this study, a total of 20 commercial brands of such beverages in Nigeria were analysed for Sodium benzoate and Potassium sorbate using a UV-Vis spectrophotometric method. Preliminary validation of the method revealed good accuracy and precision; 94.54 – 97.25% mean recovery was recorded for benzoate and 92.7 – 96.82% for sorbate. % RSD for intraday precision was 1.67% and 2.36% for benzoate and sorbate respectively. The limits of detection and quantitation (LOD, LOQ) were 1.35, 0.87mg/L for sodium benzoate and 4.11, 2.56mg/L for potassium sorbate. The samples analysed all contained sodium benzoate in concentrations ranging from 25.80 to 245.10 while for potassium sorbate, fourteen samples tested positive with concentrations between 1.36 – 158 mg/L. All the obtained concentrations for potassium sorbate were within acceptable limits but for sodium benzoate, seven samples were found with concentrations above permissible limits. Exposure estimation and health risk assessment carried out in this study revealed potential risks from the sodium benzoate content of some samples. The consumers that are prone to these risks are mainly children with body weights ≤ 30kg. Based on these findings, we recommend that the feeding of soft drinks and related beverages to children should generally be done with caution.