DETERMINATION OF SOME ESSENTIAL AND TOXIC ELEMENTS OF COMMERCIAL CHILDREN FOOD IN THE EGYPTIAN MARKETS

Abstract

The present work was carried out for determination of Antimony (Sb), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), cobalt (Co), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), lead (Pb), Manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni), Tin (Sn) and zinc (Zn) in children food samples using inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES). The method showed that the quantification limits were varied between 0.02 and 1 mg/kg. The mean recoveries ± standard deviations at different spiking levels were varied between 81.95 ± 3.89 and 112.56 ± 3.31 % with coefficient of variation expressed as relative standard deviation ranged from 1.95 and 5.91%. The method trueness was confirmed by using three different certified references materials purchased from (WEPAL) and all obtained results were with in satisfactory ranges and had acceptable recovery and Z-score values. The method precision, in terms of relative standard deviation (RSD), was being below 5.16 % .The method uncertainty expressed as expanded uncertainty of all validated elements was found to be ≤ 22.68 %. The results obtained make the method suitable for accurate determination of validated elements in different kinds of children food samples at these low concentration values. Validated method was used for the determination of metallic contaminants in 50 samples covering 19 different brands of popular biscuits, snacks, cooked potato, bake, and cake in Egypt. The result showed that, all tested samples were free from any detectable amount of Pb. On the other hand, the resulting concentration ranges, in mg/kg, were as follows: < 0.02–0.08 (Cd), < 1– 10.9 (Cu), 3.4 – 227.1 (Fe), 1.2 – 7.6 (Mn), 1.2 – 3.8 (Ni), 1 – 3.5 (Sn), and 3 – 269.1 (Zn).