Abstract:

To establish a database of heavy metal content of high-quality apples in Shaanxi so as to provide evidence for making macroscopic decisions by relevant authorities, microwave digestion followed by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopic technique was used to determine lead, arsenic, copper, cadmium, chromium contents in 47 apple samples harvested from 5 high-quality apple-producing counties in Shaanxi Province. Results showed that the apple samples tested exhibited a Pb content range of 0－0.113 mg/kg, which was 38.3% higher than the required threshold level in the industry standard NY/T268-95 of China s Ministry of Agriculture. The contents of Cd and Cr were both less than 0.025 mg/kg, the content of Cu between 0.089 and 1.709 mg/kg, and the content of As less than 0.1 mg/kg. The above data demonstrate all the apple samples tested can be classified into green food class.

Key words: high-quality apple, heavy metal, evaluation, Shaanxi