Levels of Minor and Trace Elements of Some Commercial Fruit Juices and Syrup Produced in Artisanal and Semi-Industrial Units in Benin Republic

Overview

This study measured minor and trace elements in 92 commercial fruit-juice and syrup samples from Benin and France. The main occurrence signal is bottled pineapple juice and pineapple-watermelon cocktail from Beninese artisanal and semi-industrial processors, with six French pineapple juices used as a reference set and one pineapple syrup sample included as a separate matrix. The source is directly relevant to non-apple fruit juice, especially for Al, Pb, Hg, Ba, Sn, and total As in non-canned bottled juice.

Key numbers

Overall dispersion across all 92 samples (Table 9; ppb):

The authors treated values below the quantification limit as approximately zero in the percentile table.

Mean concentrations by beverage class (Table 8; ppb):

Se, Pt, and Ag were below the quantification limit in the beverage-class table.

High-end sample notes from the results text:

• Hg exceeded the 1 ppb Benin/WHO comparator in FRU, JUA, OJA, and VIP units. Reported elevated examples include JUA2 at 1.86 ppb, JUA6 at 31.70 ppb, OJA3 at 26.00 ppb, VIP3 at 28.20 ppb, FRU4 at 14.6, and FRU5 at 25.40. The results text labels the FRU4/FRU5 values as “ppm”, but Table 9 and the surrounding Hg discussion are in ppb and the maximum is 31.7 ppb.
• Pb exceeded the 50 ppb Benin/Codex comparator in the OJA, VIT, JUS, and TRO unit discussion. The OJA production unit averaged 260 ppb Pb, while Table 9 gives the all-sample Pb maximum as 608 ppb.
• Ba exceeded the 1000 ppb comparator in the FRE unit discussion, with FRE2 at 1582 ppb and FRE4 at 1252 ppb.

Methods (brief)

The study collected juice bottles from processors around pineapple-growing areas and from retail/reference sources. The sample set included 69 bottles of 33 cL, 15 bottles of 50 cL, one gray 50 cL bottle, six French reference pineapple juices, and one pineapple syrup. The authors anonymized processing units using three-letter codes.

Samples were digested by wet mineralization in open systems using DigiPrep digestion blocks. For each sample, 2 mL ultrapure nitric acid and 1 mL 30% hydrogen peroxide were added to 2 mL juice, then heated through 45°C and 90°C digestion stages. Elements were quantified by ICP-MS using a Perkin Elmer ELAN DRC system. Validation used external/internal calibration, repeatability, reproducibility, detection/quantification limits, and certified reference materials SRM NIST 1640a and SRM SLRS-5. Statistical analysis used SPSS version 20.0.

Implications

Standards work: This is high-value fruit-juice occurrence evidence because it provides full distribution statistics rather than only mean values. The p90/p95 values for Pb, Hg, and Al are especially useful for stress-testing non-canned fruit-juice rows, while the high-end Pb and Hg examples show why artisanal and semi-industrial production context matters.

Courses: Useful for showing how beverage category labels hide process/geography variance. The paper separates French reference juices, Benin 100% pineapple juice, pineapple-watermelon cocktail, and syrup, preventing the whole sample set from being treated as one homogeneous product.

App: Supports fruit-juice screening for Pb, Hg, Al, Ba, and tAs. The app should preserve the matrix split and avoid treating the one syrup sample as representative of all fruit syrups.

Microbiome: Not addressed.

Related evidence

• Aluminum
• Arsenic, Total
• Barium
• Beryllium
• Cadmium
• Mercury, Total
• Lead
• Tin
• Thallium
• Uranium
• Fruit Juice
• Watermelon
• Fruit Juice (Not Canned)
• Fruit Juices, Non-Apple

Update history

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