Determination of Heavy Metals in Eight Barley Cultivars Collected from Wheat Research Station Tandojam, Sindh, Pakistan

Abstract

Barley (Hordeum Vulgare L.) is one of the most important foods for animals and possesses high nutritional value. In this paper, we have focused our study to find out the chemical parameters, especially metal content of this class of food commodity and its soil, which is not frequently used for human food. Wet digestion method was used to destroy the organic matrix to determine the content of eleven metals i.e. Iron, Zinc, Manganese, Copper, Cobalt, Chromium, Nickel, Lead, Cadmium, Barium and Aluminium, from eight Pakistani barley cultivars. The highest level of elements were determined in order; Cd < Ni < Pb < Cr < Co < Cu < Ba < Al < Mn < Zn < Fe in mg/kg. All analysis was carried out by using air- acetylene except Al and Ba where as both of these metals analysed on air-acetylene and nitrous oxide flame on Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer. Among all these entries, maximum concentration of Fe was detected in B6, Zn in B5, Mn, & Cu in B2 & B5, Co in B1, Ba in B7, Al in B8 and rest of the elements i.e. Cr, Pb, Ni and Cd were found to be with little difference of concentration among  cultivars.