Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Analysis of Essential and Toxic Elements in Jujube Fruits Collected from Different Locations in China

Qinghua Yan¹ , Yongtao Liu¹, Li Yang²

¹Department of Life Science and Technology, Xinxiang Medical University, Xinxiang Henan 453003; ²Department of Experimental Center, Henan Institute of Science and Technology, Xinxiang Henan 453003, PR China.

For correspondence:- Qinghua Yan Email: yqh3499@aliyun.com Tel:+863733831928

Received: 28 January 2014 Accepted: 12 March 2014 Published: 23 April 2014

Citation: Yan Q, Liu Y, Yang L. Analysis of Essential and Toxic Elements in Jujube Fruits Collected from Different Locations in China. Trop J Pharm Res 2014; 13(4):607-611 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v13i4.18

© 2014 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To develop a simple and precise method for the determination of the levels of both essential and toxic elements in jujube collected from different locations in China.

Methods: Dried jujube fruits collected were digested by optimized microwave procedure. Inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry was employed to evaluate essential elements, viz, calcium, magnesium, manganese, iron and copper (Ca, Mg, Mn, Fe and Cu) and toxic elements, namely, aluminum, lead and cadmium (Al, Pb and Cd) in four jujube fruits.

Results: The results show that the jujube fruits were rich in essential elements and had low contents of toxic elements. The levels of the elements varied significantly amongst the four jujube fruits (p F6; 0.05). Method validation indicates that the proposed method was accurate and precision. The detection limits were 0.0005 - 0.0100 µg/mL while recovery ranged from 91.6 - 105.0%, with relative standard deviation (RSD) F6; 5%.

Conclusion: Five essential elements and two toxic elements (except cadmium) varied widely in their contents in the four jujube fruits. Knowledge of the contents of these elements would provide consumers with information on the quality of jujube fruits.

Keywords: Jujube fruits, Essential and toxic elements, Microware digestion, Inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry