Overview
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 chromium (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; nickel (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 lead (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. cadmium (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 aluminum (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 hexavalent chromium (Cr-VI). Blood serum metals were measured in local people who were described as students or office workers without direct contaminated-environment exposure.
Related evidence
- Metal and alloy cookware (cast iron, stainless steel, aluminum)
- Lead
- Cadmium
- Nickel
- Chromium
- Aluminum
- Tin
- X-ray fluorescence (XRF)
Update history
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