Determination of Metal Contents in Sugar Beet (Beta vulgaris) and Its Products: Empirical and Chemometrical Approach

Abstract

In order to get a better insight into the metal patterns of the investigated samples, three statistical techniques were used. Principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis (CA) approved to be more powerful than Spearman's test in revealing the specific correlations among the variables (i.e. metal contents). PCA and CA pointed out the specific metal pattern of molasses on one hand and of sugar beet, extracted and dried sugar beet pulps on the other. Moreover, the chemometrical approach pointed out that main components that classified the metal behavior in the examined samples were the ones correlated with Na and K on one hand, and on the other hand with the remaining metals.Keywords: sugar beet, metals content, AAS, principal component analysis, cluster analysis *To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: biljana@tf.uns.ac.rs IntroductionIt is well known fact that the chemical composition of plants reflects in general the elemental composition of the growth media. Higher plants take up metals from air (or water) by the shoots, but the absorption from soil by roots could be regarded as the main pathway of elements to plants (Kabata-Pendias and Pendias, 2000). The concentration of metallic elements in soils is associated with biological and geochemical cycles and is influenced by anthropogenic activities, such as agricultural practices, transport, industrial activities, waste treatment and disposal (He et al., 2005). Metals exist in soil in immobile (sulphides, phosphates, silicates, etc.) and mobile forms, with later being more important for understanding the migration patterns and the uptake by plants. It has been well documented that the soil contamination is likely to result in a corresponding contamination of harvested crops and the food consumers (Fergusson, 1990, Younas et al., 1998, Nan et al., 2002. Furthermore, processing of raw materials and the process conditions (additives, pH, etc.) could also influence the quality of the final food products including their metal contents (de Brujin and Bout, 1999, Mohamed, 1999).The elemental composition of sugar beet has been a subject of few previous studies investigating sugar beet quality and its influence on the quality of the final products (Mauch and Farhoudi, 1979/80, Škrbić et al., 2005a, Škrbić and Ðurišić-Mladenović, 2005. Additionaly, the heavy element contents of sugar beet has been investigated to determine the beet uptake as a consequence of either the growth on contaminated soils (Bojinova et al., 1996) or different agricultural practices (Saleh et al., 1999, Mantovi et al., 2003. The contents of alkaline and alkaline earth metals in sugar beet were also the subject of a sugar beet nutrition study by Wakeel et al. (2009). The main sugar beet product, white sugar, is referred as a very pure food product, although it contains a very small but significant amount of impurities. The control of inorganic impurities in the sugar, i.e. trace elements, is important because of its fundamental nutritional role in the diet of humans and especi...

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