Overview
Hassan and colleagues developed a stripping-voltammetry method for cadmium, lead and copper and applied it to 26 honeys from Assiut governorate and four edible molasses samples, checking each result by AAS. Each sample is reported separately with both methods, which agree closely.
Key numbers
- Lead in honey 0.087 to 1.640 µg/g by voltammetry; clover honey from Assiut 1.640 ± 0.081 µg/g (GFAAS 1.650 ± 0.112) (Table 2).
- Lead in edible molasses 0.006 to 0.201 µg/g by voltammetry (Table 2).
- Cadmium 0.0044 to 0.077 µg/g in honey and 0.001 to 0.066 µg/g in molasses (Table 1).
- Copper 0.085 to 0.987 µg/g by voltammetry (Table 3).
Methods (brief)
HNO3 then HNO3/HClO4 wet digestion of 1 g; differential pulse anodic stripping voltammetry on a hanging mercury drop electrode with standard addition; graphite furnace AAS for cadmium and lead and flame AAS for copper as comparison. Five replicates per sample; no CRM, recovery or detection limits.
Evidence Fitness
Per-sample data by two methods add confidence, but there are no dates, LODs or CRM, and the AAS column headers in Tables 2 and 3 are mislabeled “Cadmium content”. Several honey lead values (above 1 µg/g) are high for honey. Molasses is directly measured and links the syrups and molasses page; honey and molasses are proxies only for pancake-syrup, which is not linked.