Elemental Analysis of Nine Herbal Drugs for Nourishing Blood by Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectroscopy with Microwave Digestion

An analytical method has been developed for the determination of traces of Zn, Mn, Na, K, Ca, Mg, Ni, Pb, Se, Fe, Cu, Al, B, Ti, Sn, Hg, and Li in nine herbal drugs for nourishing blood by ICP-AES. The data showed that nine herbal drugs for nourishing blood were abundant in the contents of major and trace elements which are healthy for human body, including the trace elements with higher contents, such as Fe, Se, Ni, Mn, and Zn, which are well known for nourishing blood. Elements (macro-elements, essential elements, non-essential elements, and toxic elements) classified in nine herbal drugs for nourishing blood were illustrated in cylindrical histograms. Principal component analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis were applied to the data matrix to evaluate analytical results. The results of hierarchical cluster analysis showed that dendrogram obtained by Ward's method of hierarchical cluster analysis for seventeen variables and nine samples mainly displayed three clusters. After optimizing the microwave digestion technology, the recoveries of seventeen elements were in the ranges from 97.89% to 103.25% and the RSDs were all lower than 3.0%. ICP-AES combined with microwave digestion is accurate and precise in determining major and trace elements in nine herbal drugs for nourishing blood.