Overview
Eftekhari and colleagues measured lead, cadmium, copper, zinc, nickel and cobalt in 38 pre-packed table salts from Shiraz retail outlets, comparing salts refined by recrystallization with salts refined by washing. Results are on a dry-weight basis. Only cobalt differed significantly between the two refining methods.
Key numbers
- Lead: 0.309 ± 0.263 µg/g (range 0.021 to 0.921) recrystallized; 0.379 ± 0.276 µg/g (0.096 to 0.929) washed; p = 0.234 (Table 1, p. 3).
- Cadmium: 0.020 ± 0.020 µg/g recrystallized; 0.017 ± 0.021 µg/g washed (Table 1, p. 3).
- Cobalt: 0.008 ± 0.007 versus 0.037 ± 0.069 µg/g, p = 0.020 (Table 1, p. 3).
- Iranian limits quoted: lead 1.0, cadmium 0.2 µg/g; Codex lead 2.0, cadmium 0.5 µg/g (Table 1).
Methods (brief)
Five grams of salt were dissolved in 50 mL water and analysed by differential pulse anodic stripping voltammetry on a hanging mercury drop electrode with standard addition. Groups were compared with the Mann-Whitney U test. No certified reference material or detection limit is reported.
Evidence Fitness
A reasonable retail sample (n=38) with a processing comparison, but no CRM or LOD. Iodization status is not stated, so this is a proxy for iodized-salt and that page is not linked.