Evaluation of elements in Persian tahini (ardeh) using ICP-OES (inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy) method

ABSTRACT

The aim of present study was to measure of 15 element levels (Hg, Ca, As, Fe, Mg, Pb, Mn, Co, Al, Se, Cr, Ni, P, Zn and Cd) using ICP-OES (Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission spectroscopy) in Persian tahini (Ardeh) samples. Further, the correlation between the type and amount of essential elements and toxic elements samples was evaluated with multivariate principal component analysis. The LOD, LOQ and recovery of methods were ranged from 0.43 to 2.166, 0.128 to 6.498 µg/kg and 95.3 to 104.7%, respectively. According to our results, the highest and lowest mean of toxic metals were related to Al 122.20 ± 56.70 and Cd 7.82 ± 1.40, respectively. Also, the highest mean of essential metals was related to the Mg 29,345.37 ± 4816.00 and the lowest mean of essential metals was related to the Se and P that were not detected in all samples. Finally, in all samples, level of all elements (toxic and essential) were lower than the standard levels of Iran and other countries, consequently, for the consumers of this product in Iran, there is no risk.

KEYWORDS:

• Essential elements
• toxic elements
• food safety
• sesame seed

Acknowledgments

This research has been supported by the Amol University of Special Modern Technologies and Tehran University of Medical Sciences.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author’s contributions

Nabi Shariatifar: Conceptualization, Supervision, Design of study, Methodology, Writing- Reviewing and Editing, Validation. Pegah Kargarghomsheh: Writing- Original draft, Design of study, Methodology. Abbas Mehraie: Writing- Reviewing and Editing. Naeemeh Noghre, Gholamali Sharifiarab and Fahimeh Tooryan and Mahmood Alizadeh-Sani: Visualization, Investigation, Methodology, Software, Data curation, Validation.

Data availability statement

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Ethical review

This study does not involve any human or animal testing.