Determination of trace metals in vegetables using ICP-MS

Abstract

The aim of this research was to evaluate the total content of heavy metals in selected and frequently used vegetables. Ten samples of the most common diet vegetables (chard, celery, garden cress, spinach, Egyptian leek, wild mint, spring onion, arum, mallow, sunflower) were collected from the local markets in Erbil, in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. The heavy metals were extracted from vegetable samples by microwave-assisted acid digestion utilizing nitric acid/hydrogen peroxide, followed by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) to determine the concentrations of As, Cd, Cr, Cu and Pb in the samples. The concentration ranges of heavy metals found for the ten types of edible vegetables investigated are as follows (in µg g-1):