Detection of Heavy Elements in the Pulp of Snow-Capped Seabuckthorn Medicinal Plant Using Emission Spectroscopy

Abstract

Seabuckthorn (SBT) is a very popular plant in high-altitude cold desert areas which has tremendous medicinal properties. The present study used Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES) to analyze SBT fruit pulp extracts concerning heavy metals Potassium, Phosphorus, Calcium, Magnesium, Copper, Manganese, Zinc, Boron, Nickel, Cadmium and Lead. This study found that heavy metals in SBT herbal plant was in the range of 8.65 g/kg Potassium, 1.74 g/kg Phosphorus, 0.692 g/kg Calcium, 0.546 g/kg Magnesium, 39.45 mg/kg Iron, 5.468 mg/kg Copper, 12.68 mg /kg Manganese, 8.25 mg/kg Zinc, 11.36 mg/kg Boron, 0.35 mg/kg Nickel, 0.021 mg/kg Cadmium and 0.027 mg/kg Lead. The findings of this study were compared with the prescribed limits of these metals in WHO guidelines and the content of all these heavy metals was found to be within safe limits.