Development and Application of an ICP-AES Method for the Determination of Nutrient and Toxic Elements in Savory Snack Products after Autoclave Dissolution

Abstract

In this study, a method for the determination of trace elements in snacks using inductively coupled plasma–atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) is presented. The examined elements were Pb, Ni, Cr, Cu, Mg, Zn, Fe, Al, Ba, Ca, Co, Mn and Cd. Under the optimized conditions, digestion of 300 mg of the snack samples was performed by the addition of 5 mL of nitric acid in a Teflon autoclave and by heating the obtained mixture at 120 °C for 75 min. In order to evaluate the efficiency of the proposed protocol, method linearity, accuracy precision, limits of detection (LODs) and limits of quantification (LOQs) were evaluated. The relative standard deviations (RSD%) for all elements were lower than 13.5%, demonstrating that the method offered good precision. The relative recoveries values (R%) ranged between 80–120%, demonstrating that the method offered good accuracy. The LODs for all the trace elements ranged between 0.18 and 3.75 μg g−1, while the LOQs ranged between 0.60 and 12.50 μg g−1. Finally, the proposed protocol was implemented for the analysis of a wide variety of savory snack samples including commercial snacks from corn, potato chips, popcorns, puffed rice cake and crackers.