Gül and Kul 2021 - heavy metals in oil sunflower seeds from the Middle Black Sea Region of Turkey

Gül and Kul measured heavy metals in 18 oil sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) seed samples drawn from six locations across the Middle Black Sea Region of northern Turkey (Havza, Vezirköprü, Bafra in Samsun; Merzifon in Amasya; Turhal in Tokat; and Çorum). The source is directly routeable to sunflower seeds and provides range values for Cd, Pb, Ni, Al, Cu, and Zn. Units in the abstract are reported as µg/kg and should be checked against the source’s figures before conversion.

Key numbers

• n=18 sunflower seed samples from six regions.
• Cd ranged 0-0.06 ug/kg and Pb ranged 0-1.07 ug/kg.
• Fe ranged 13.14-61.04 ug/kg, Zn 34.11-54.12 ug/kg, Cu 15.68-20.7 ug/kg, and Mn 12.72-20.20 ug/kg.
• B ranged 4.82-10.33 ug/kg, Al 0-13.12 ug/kg, Ni 0.88-7.74 ug/kg, and Co 0.037-0.12 ug/kg.

Methods (brief)

0.2 g of each seed sample was microwave-digested in 9 mL HNO3 (65%) plus 1 mL H2O2 (30%) at 200 °C in an Ethos Easy (Milestone) advanced microwave digestion system, cooled, filtered through 0.45 µm PTFE filters, and analyzed in triplicate by ICP-MS for B, Al, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd, and Pb. Cr was not measured; no speciation (Cr-VI, iAs, MeHg) was performed.

Implications

Certification: Turkey sunflower-seed occurrence evidence with regional sampling. Courses: example of low reported Cd/Pb ranges and unit-verification need. App: supports sunflower-seed context after basis confirmation.

Wiki pages this source may touch

• Sunflower Seeds
• Sunflower Seeds
• Cadmium
• Lead
• Nickel
• Aluminum
• Copper
• Zinc

Verification notes

Values are from the abstract and confirmed against the figures on page 3. The reported µg/kg unit is unusually low for seed mineral measurements (typical sunflower seed Fe and Zn are ~50 mg/kg, ~1000× higher than what the paper reports); the paper’s unit declaration is likely a mg/kg vs µg/kg labelling error, but the wiki page transcribes the source as printed. Do not pool these values into ingredient contamination_profile until the unit question is resolved.

Cite-key/handle mismatch (2026-06-09 audit): the file’s cite_key: ozyazici2021-sunflower-seeds-metals and raw_handle: AUTO_gap-sunflower-seeds-cd-2021-10-31590-ejosat-873311 were generated from an autopilot stub that misattributed authorship. The PDF at raw_path is genuinely Gül V. & Kul S. (2021), DOI 10.31590/ejosat.873311 — the same DOI listed in frontmatter. Ozyazici/Dengiz/Aygun do not appear on this paper. Cite-key rename is locked to Karen; the page body and frontmatter authors/title were corrected on 2026-06-09 to reflect the actual paper. A future cite-key migration to gul2021-sunflower-seeds-metals (or similar) is recommended.

Page history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page. The full version history lives in git; when DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.