Investigation of palladium and platinum contamination in food by means of Sector Field Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry
Résumé
Over the last two decades some noble metals such as Pd and Pt have been raising much concern as regards their impact on human health. These elements pollute the various environmental compartments due to the wide variety of their uses ranging from catalytic properties to medical applications. The risk they pose to human health and the environment is, from many viewpoints, still a controversial issue. Whatever its extent may be, however, literature data point to the diet as an important source of their uptake by the human body. In this context, the total Pd and Pt contents of several Italian food commodities have been investigated. A total number of 90 samples, including flour products, vegetables and foodstuffs of animal origin (meat, milk and eggs), were collected and freeze-dried. Samples were analyzed by Sector Field Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (SF-ICP- MS) after chopping or crushing followed by freeze-drying and microwave (MW)-assisted acid digestion in a Class-100 clean room. A mathematical approach was adopted to correct the mass signals for the still unresolved interferences (m/Χm= 300, 10,000). The lowest and the highest mean concentrations of Pt, i.e. 24 and 174 ng kg-1 (dry weight, dw), were detected in vegetables and flour products, respectively. In turn, the lowest Pd level (3120 ng kg-1, dw) was found in eggs and the highest one (95 600 ng kg-1, dw) in poultry.
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