Analysis of Heavy Metals in Organic and non-Organic Vegetables

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Research article

Journal of the Korean Society for Environmental Analysis 2010;13(1):21-25.

유기농 및 비유기농 채소류 중 중금속 함량 분석

김기동

상지대학교

Abstract

Some of commercially available organic and non-organic vegetables in Wonju area were collected to evaluate the safety according to the heavy metal contents. The target metals included As, Cd, Co, Cr, Ni, Pb and Se. The analysis result showed that the Pb contents in organic green onion and non-organic green onion were 0.225 and 0.104 mg/kg, respectively. These values are over the safety criteria of 0.11mg/kg. Although below the criteria, organic lettuce and non-organic young radish turned out to contain 0.051 and 0.060 mg/kg of Pb,respectively. Non-organic leak also showed 0.042 mg/kg of Cd which was not over the guideline but not low concentration either. Co contents of the vegetables were relatively low (<0.1 mg/kg) except non-organic sesame leaf; it had 0.232 mg/kg. The Cr contents of organic young radish and organic green onion were all over 0.1mg/kg. However, the rest of the vegetables had less than 0.5 mg/kg. All the samples showed less than 0.1 mg/kg of Ni contents. This result points out that the safety of organic vegetables may not be guaranteed in terms of the toxicity from heavy metals.

Key Words: Heavy metals, Organic vegetables, non-Organic vegetables