Overview
An undergraduate B.Sc. (Hons.) Chemistry final-year project at Universiti Teknologi MARA (Shah Alam, Selangor) measured lead, cadmium, zinc, and aluminium in three commercial fish-sauce samples coded sample A, sample B, and sample C by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES). Sample C is reported by the abstract to have the highest aluminium (36.39 mg/kg) and the lowest zinc (13.18 mg/kg) of the three samples but its lead and cadmium concentrations are not stated in the abstract. The methods chapter and the results-and-discussion chapter (Chapters 3 and 4) are not present in the copy of the PDF under review (the raw file in the archived source file is truncated to 5 of the original 24 pages); the page below records only what the abstract states verbatim and explicitly disclaims values that the abstract does not state.
The abstract reports that all three samples exceeded the Malaysian Food Regulation 1985 cadmium permitted level of 1 mg/kg by a wide margin (27.46 mg/kg, 36.57 mg/kg, and an unreported Sample C value). The reported cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb) concentrations are an order of magnitude higher than peer-reviewed fish-sauce baselines elsewhere in the corpus; the values are recorded here as the abstract states them, with a data-integrity flag noting that the basis (digest-solution vs as-purchased sauce) cannot be confirmed without the missing methods chapter.
Key numbers
Per-sample concentrations reported in the abstract (units: mg/kg as stated by the source; basis not specified in the abstract — the methods chapter is not present in the PDF copy under review):
| Sample | Pb (mg/kg) | Cd (mg/kg) | Zn (mg/kg) | Al (mg/kg) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sample A | 3.94 | 36.57 | 54.93 | 4.10 |
| Sample B | 2.58 | 27.46 | 52.63 | 5.66 |
| Sample C | not stated in abstract | not stated in abstract | 13.18 | 36.39 |
The abstract describes sample A as containing “the highest lead, cadmium, and zinc content” and “the lowest [aluminium]” (4.10 mg/kg). Sample C is described as containing “the highest amount of aluminium (36.39 mg/kg) and lowest amount of zinc (13.18 mg/kg).” The abstract does not give numerical Pb or Cd values for sample C; whether sample C is higher or lower than sample B for those analytes cannot be inferred without the results chapter.
Regulatory comparison stated by the abstract: the abstract states that all three samples exceeded the cadmium permitted level of 1 mg/kg in the Malaysian Food Regulation 1985. By the values the abstract does report, sample A exceeds 1 mg/kg Cd by ~37×, sample B by ~27×.
Methods
Analytical instrument: inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES), per the abstract.
The methods chapter (Chapter 3 — sample digestion, standard solution preparation, ICP-OES instrument settings, calibration, replicate count, recovery/QA-QC) is not present in the copy of the PDF under review. The Table of Contents (page iv of the thesis) lists these subsections (3.1 Materials; 3.2 Methods covering 3.2.1 Sample digestion, 3.2.2 Standard solution, 3.2.3 Determination of heavy metals) on pages 17–18, but the PDF in the archived source file ends at page 5 (Chapter 1 Introduction, second page). Recovery against certified reference material, digest dilution factor, and the as-consumed vs digest-solution basis of the reported mg/kg values therefore cannot be confirmed from this copy.
Speciation
No speciation. Pb, Cd, Zn, and aluminum (Al) are reported as total element only. The abstract does not address oxidation state.
Quality control
Not reported in the available text (abstract only). The methods chapter would normally document CRM recovery, calibration curve quality, and replicate RSD; that chapter is not present in the available copy.
Implications
This page records what the abstract of a 2009 UiTM B.Sc. final-year project states about three coded fish-sauce samples. The page does not draw category-level conclusions about Malaysian fish-sauce contamination from n=3 coded samples — that is Part 9 synthesis work that should be done together with the peer-reviewed fish-sauce sources already in the corpus (Rodriguez et al. 2009 on arsenic (As) speciation, Diviš et al. 2020 on Hg) rather than from this single undergraduate thesis. The order-of-magnitude gap between this paper’s per-sample Cd (27–37 mg/kg) and the peer-reviewed fish-sauce baseline (typically below 0.1 mg/kg in marketed product) is itself the load-bearing observation: either the matrix is genuinely unusual, or the methodology has an issue that the missing chapter would have to explain. Until the full thesis text is recovered, this paper should be treated as a lead, not as a contributor to a synthesis percentile.
Update history
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