Abstract
Toxic metals in rice pose great risks to human health. Metal bioaccumulation in rice grains is a criterion of breeding. Rice breeding requires a sensitive method to determine metal content in single rice grains to assist the variety selection. In the present study, four toxic metals of arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr) and lead (Pb) in a single rice grain were determined by a simple and rapid method. The developed method is based on matrix solid phase dispersion using multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) as dispersing agent and analyzed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. The experimental parameters were systematically investigated. The limits of detection (LOD) were 5.0, 0.6, 10 and 2.1 ng g−1 for As, Cd, Cr, and Pb, respectively, with relative standard deviations (n = 6) of <7.7%, demonstrating the good sensitivity and precision of the method. The results of 30 real world rice samples analyzed by this method agreed well with those obtained by the standard microwave digestion. The amount of sample required was reduced approximately 100 fold in comparison with the microwave digestion. The method has a high application potential for other sample matrices and elements with high sensitivity and sample throughput.
Highlights
Rice is the most important food for the world population[1]
Acid treatment was chosen for the purification of commercial multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), and washed MWCNTs were sequentially applied for the Matrix solid-phase dispersion (MSPD) extraction of toxic metal elements (As, Cd, Cr and Pb) in a single rice seed
Treated and untreated MWCNTs samples were first characterized by Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) (Fig. 1)
Summary
The toxic metallic elements in rice grains transferred from the environment and agricultural input[2] often pose great risks to food safety and human health because of their toxicity, persistence, and non-degradability[3]. Those toxic metals include arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), chromium Cr), and lead (Pb). The development of a rapid and simple method to determine the metal elements in rice seed samples is important for the rice breeding. Accurate determination of trace metal elements in single rice grains is important Such sensitive methods are necessary tools to aid rice breeding to select low metal bioaccumulation varieties. The proposed sample preparation method coupled with ICP-MS was validated and successfully applied to analysis of metal elements in rice samples
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