Abstract

Rice is the main cereal product used as a food product in Southern India. Therefore, the aim of this study was to develop and validate an analytical methodology to determine the metals Pb, Cd, As, Hg, Cu, Zn and Sn in Rice (cereal) sample using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). To obtain the rice samples were homogenized, grinded, weighed and digested in microwave digester with supra pure nitric acid. The analytical method was validated by measuring several parameters including limit of detection (LOD), limit of quantification (LOQ), linearity, precision, accuracy, repeatability. Percent recoveries of spiked samples were within the acceptable range. The results for Pb, Cd, As, Hg, Cu, Zn and Sn in Rice were 98.14%, 100.51%, 102.43%, 98.39%, 98.13%, 106.17% and 81.84% respectively. Therefore, the method using ICP-MS was developed and validated to determine metals concentrations in Rice samples and the proposed method could be applied in routine analytical laboratory.