Sultan et al. 2023 — Potentially hazardous element leaching from cookware

Sultan and colleagues measured elemental composition of locally made aluminum, stainless-steel, and copper cookware from Pakistan and tested metal release under acidic, alkaline, neutral-water, and cooked-meat conditions. The source is direct product evidence for metal-alloy cookware and leaching-context evidence for food-contact exposure. It should not be treated as a nonstick-coating paper merely because the auto-fetch row used that label.

Key numbers

• Product composition by XRF was reported in g/kg. Lead was 3.20 +/- 0.25 g/kg in non-anodized aluminum cookware, 4.64 +/- 0.20 g/kg in anodized aluminum cookware, 0.88 +/- 0.01 g/kg in stainless steel cookware, and 2.90 +/- 0.12 g/kg in copper cookware.
• Other cookware-content values included Cr at 0.27 +/- 0.008 g/kg in non-anodized aluminum, 0.20 +/- 0.01 g/kg in anodized aluminum, and 139.66 +/- 3.76 g/kg in stainless steel; Ni at 0.25 +/- 0.01 g/kg, 0.38 +/- 0.00 g/kg, 12.74 +/- 0.05 g/kg, and 2.86 +/- 0.06 g/kg in non-anodized aluminum, anodized aluminum, steel, and copper, respectively.
• In 4% acetic acid, new non-anodized aluminum cookware released Pb at 1.52 +/- 0.01 mg/L after 0.5 h, 3.22 +/- 0.02 mg/L after 1 h, and 5.66 +/- 0.05 mg/L after 2 h. Cd in the same condition increased from 0.11 +/- 0.00 to 0.30 +/- 0.00 mg/L across 0.5 to 2 h.
• In 4% acetic acid, new anodized aluminum cookware released Pb at 1.06 +/- 0.01, 1.50 +/- 0.06, and 1.95 +/- 0.01 mg/L over 0.5, 1, and 2 h; Cd was 0.10 +/- 0.01, 0.14 +/- 0.01, and 0.22 +/- 0.00 mg/L.
• Cooking meat for 1 h in aluminum cookware produced Pb of 1.20 +/- 0.04 ppm from new non-anodized cookware, 0.80 +/- 0.04 ppm from old non-anodized cookware, 0.40 +/- 0.07 ppm from new anodized cookware, and 0.70 +/- 0.10 ppm from old anodized cookware. Cd in the same meat test was 0.06 +/- 0.00, 0.04 +/- 0.00, 0.003 +/- 0.00, and 0.02 +/- 0.01 ppm.
• Neutral distilled-water leaching was much lower than acidic or alkaline leaching; for example, non-anodized aluminum released Pb at 0.002, 0.003, and 0.005 mg/L over 0.5, 1, and 2 h in new cookware, while the old non-anodized 1 h value was 0.22 +/- 0.04 mg/L.
• Blood-serum screening of local participants reported Al at 13.34 +/- 0.49 mg/L, Pb at 1.32 +/- 0.19 mg/L, Cd at 0.51 +/- 0.016 mg/L, and Ni at 2.17 +/- 0.10 mg/L. The paper does not establish cookware as the only exposure source for these biomonitoring values.

Methods (brief)

Cookware fragments were polished and analyzed by X-ray fluorescence. Leaching tests boiled 4% acetic acid, 0.5 N sodium bicarbonate, distilled water, and meat in cookware for specified times; leachates were analyzed by atomic absorption spectrophotometry for Al, Ni, Pb, Cd, Cr, Cu, and Fe. The study reports total elemental metals, not arsenic speciation, methylmercury, or Cr-VI. Blood serum metals were measured in local people who were described as students or office workers without direct contaminated-environment exposure.

Implications

Certification: The cookware-content and leachate results are candidate evidence for a food-contact cookware category, especially where informal or low-quality aluminum cookware is relevant. Acidic and alkaline leachate values should remain food-contact migration context, not direct occurrence values for the food being cooked unless the basis conversion is explicit.

Courses: Useful for explaining pH-dependent metal migration from cookware, the difference between total product composition and leachable fraction, and the importance of anodization or surface integrity.

App: Can support consumer-context warnings that acidic foods and longer cooking times may increase Pb and Cd migration from some metal cookware.

Wiki pages this source may touch

• cookware-metal-alloy
• lead
• cadmium
• nickel
• chromium
• aluminum
• tin
• x-ray-fluorescence

Verification notes

• DOI, authors, journal, year, and license were read from the PDF title page.
• The auto-fetch row identified the paper through a nonstick-coated cookware query, but the actual study covers aluminum, stainless-steel, and copper cookware. The route uses cookware-metal-alloy.
• Chromium is total chromium from XRF/AAS methods; no Cr-VI value is inferred.
• Blood-serum values are retained as exposure context only because the paper did not isolate cookware as the sole exposure route.

Page history

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