Variation in accumulation of heavy metals in different verities of sunflower seed oil with the aid of multivariate technique

In this work, three heavy metals (HMs) cadmium, lead, and zinc were determined in 16 newly breaded varieties of sunflower seed oil, using atomic absorption spectrometry, prior to use of microwave-assisted acid digestion method (MWD). The accuracy of the proposed method was studied by standard addition method and values obtained by conventional wet acid digestion methods (CAM) on same samples. The detection limit obtained from the standard addition curve was 0.327, 3.38, 10.0 ng/ml for Cd, Pb, and Zn, respectively, with high percentage recoveries. Multivariate statistical techniques (cluster and principal component analysis) were applied to modeling classes of different varieties of sunflower seed oils grown in same agricultural plot, on the basis of the analytical data of HMs. The results obtained providing sufficient information on tolerable limit of all three HMs by different varieties of sunflower oil to grow safely. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.