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9942

Reduction of Heavy Metals Content in Contaminated Vegetables due to the Post-harvest Treatments

Article

Last updated: 22 Jan 2023

Subjects

-

Tags

Environmental chemistry

Abstract

Heavy metals highly contaminated samples of potato, tomato, and cucumber were used to study the effects of washing, shelling and soaking (in vinegar 5% for 5 min.) on heavy metals reduction. Heavy metal levels were determined for untreated and treated samples using Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer and the reduction ratios of heavy metal levels were calculated. The vinegar (acetic acid) effect could be due to its effect on the pH value that influences the solution chemistry of the heavy metals such as hydrolysis, complexation by organic and inorganic ligands, redox reactions, precipitation and the adsorption availability of the heavy metals. For potato, the results revealed that washing and shelling have removed high ratio of heavy metals, however the reduction was not sufficient to decrease the levels of Pb and Cd to be within the MRLs. While soaking in vinegar in addition to washing and shelling of potato has led to a significant decrease in Pb and Cd concentrations being lower than the MRLs. For tomato and cucumber, the Cd element was not detected after washing of both vegetable kinds. Lead level in tomato was significantly decreased to the MRLs values when washed and shelled, while Pb level in cucumber was still higher than MRLs.

DOI

10.21608/ejchem.2018.3624.1303

Keywords

vegetables, Washing, Soaking, Heavy metals, household processing

Authors

First Name

Gomaa

Last Name

Abdel-Rahman

MiddleName

Nour-Eldein

Affiliation

Food Toxins and Contaminants Dept., National Research Center, Dokki, Cairo, Egypt

Email

gomaa.nrc@gmail.com

City

Giza

Orcid

0000-0002-6193-9033

First Name

Mohamed

Last Name

Ahmed

MiddleName

Bedair Mohamed

Affiliation

Department of Food Toxins and Contaminants, National Research Centre, Dokki, Cairo, Egypt.

Email

mbedear76@gmail.com

City

Giza

Orcid

-

First Name

Diaa

Last Name

Marrez

MiddleName

Attia

Affiliation

Food toxins and contaminants Department, National Research Center, Dokki, Cairo, Egypt

Email

diaamm80@hotmail.com

City

Cairo

Orcid

-

Volume

61

Article Issue

6

Related Issue

2055

Issue Date

2018-12-01

Receive Date

2018-04-24

Publish Date

2018-12-01

Page Start

1,031

Page End

1,037

Print ISSN

0449-2285

Online ISSN

2357-0245

Link

https://ejchem.journals.ekb.eg/article_9942.html

Detail API

https://ejchem.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=9942

Order

35

Type

Original Article

Type Code

297

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Egyptian Journal of Chemistry

Publication Link

https://ejchem.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

-

Details

Type

Article

Created At

22 Jan 2023