A study of the levels of toxic metals in Indian and USA rice samples using ICP-AES and various surface analysys techniques

Heavy metals receive particular concern because of their strong toxicity even at low concentrations. One of the most important environmental issues today is water contamination by these metals ions and their subsequent absorption and transport to wide variety of edibles. The situation is analogous to phytoremediation except that the agriculture products under exposure to these metal ions are a consumable item. The objectives of the present work were to estimate the types and levels of metal contaminants in agriculture products especially rice. Rice was chosen because it is one of the most widely used food staple, and it is generally eaten in large quantities. Thus, the objective of this research was to analyze the levels of various priority and other metals present in various rice samples.;Rice samples were obtained from India and USA. They were pulverized and sieved before subjecting them to well-established procedures of acid digestion for extraction of the metal ions. The extracted metals were analyzed using AAS and ICP-AES. The solid particles of rice were studied using XRD/EDAX and SEM to gain a better understanding of the location or distribution of metal ions in the rice grain. Our findings will help us establish the dangers of consuming contaminated rice. One of the main constituent of baby foods is rice. Children being of lower weight have greater susceptibility to health from metal contaminants. Also, one must consider the metal toxicity for their whole life span, which is likely to be longer than a grown adult.;The emerging health safety issue in the media and society is whether food products are safe enough to consume or not. So, in our thesis, we are analyzing random rice samples from India and USA because rice is the major consuming food product in many forms all over the world. In our work, we have used the acid digestion method to digest rice in acid media to extract metals into a solution. Clear solution was produced from acid solution using centrifuge. Then, these samples were analyzed by ICP-AES for the concentration of metals. Scanning electron microscope and X-ray diffraction were used for surface study of the powdered rice samples.