Overview
Nisa and colleagues measured iron, lead, cobalt, manganese, cadmium, copper and nickel by flame AAS in five vegetables, six fruit samples, fruit peels and apple endocarp bought in Quetta, Pakistan, in June and July 2019. Tables 2 to 4 give one value per item in ppm after oven drying.
Key numbers
- Water melon flesh: lead 0.6777, cadmium 0.1015, nickel 0.1933 ppm; peel: lead 0.2745, cadmium 0.1245 ppm (Tables 3 and 4, p. 50).
- Cabbage lead 0.7732 ppm and tomato lead 0.4455 ppm; cucumber nickel 5.8191 ppm (Table 2, p. 50).
- Peach flesh lead 0.8242 ppm, the highest fruit lead value (Table 3).
Methods (brief)
Rinsed with distilled water, chopped, oven dried at 50 °C, ground, digested with HNO3/HClO4/H2SO4 (5:1:1) and read by flame AAS (Thermo S4) with three readings per sample. No LOD, reference material or recovery reported.
Evidence Fitness
One value per item without sample counts, dispersion or quality control. Cadmium is close to 0.1 ppm in every sample, which may reflect an instrument floor. Results are on a dried-sample basis. Watermelon is a proxy for the cantaloupe page, which is not linked.