Simultaneous analysis of metals in various types of medicinl herbs commonly used to produce functional foods by ICP-MS

Abstract

ICP-MS method was optimized for the simultaneous analysis of 16 metals (Pb, Cd, As, Hg, Sn, Sb, Co, Ni, Cr, Mn, Mo, Se, Cu, Fe, Zn , Al) in types of medicinal herbs commonly used to produce functional foods. The conditions of samples digestion in a closed system using a microwave and an opened system in Kjeldahl method have been studied in order to flexibly apply different methods of sample preparation in practice. The method was validated with parameters such as calibration curve, limit of detection, limit of quantitation, repeatability RSDr % (0.98 - 19.7%), reproducibility RSDR% (2.72 - 23.5%) and recovery R% (80.3 -109%) meeting the AOAC performance requirements. The method was applied to determine heavy metals in 40 samples of medicinal herbs of apart from the risk of pollution with some toxic heavy metals such as lead and cadmium in medicinal herbs.