| Summary: | Tobacco (Nicotiana tabaccum) is a commercial plant that is naturally accumulate and
concentrate relatively high levels of heavy metals. It is one of the basic agricultural
products with social and economic importance. However, there is no much report in
the literature on the determination of heavy metals levels in tobacco leaves and local
cigarettes. Hence this study is an initial attempt to investigate the accumulation level
of selected heavy metals (Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mg, Ni, Pb & Zn) concentration in
tobacco leaves and local cigarettes of Kota Marudu, Sabah. Digestion of all samples
was done using an acid digestion method which is using nitric acid (HN03). However,
the methods that used to digest the samples of tobacco leaves and local cigarettes
are different. Digestion of tobacco leaves was undergo 85°C-150°C for 2 hours
whereas for local cigarettes was 100°C for 2 hours. Inductively Coupled Plasma-
Optical Emission Spectrometry( ICP-OES)is used to determine the concentration of
heavy metals. Analysis from ICP-OES shows the accumulation of heavy metals in
tobacco leaves are Co<Pb<Cr<Cd<Cu<Ni<Zn<Fe<Mg whereas the sequence for
local cigarettes is Co<Pb<Cd<Cr<Ni<Cu<Zn<Fe<Mg. Highest heavy metals found in
both tobacco leaves samples and local cigarettes samples are Mg with the value of
217.395mg/L ±13.072 and 217.743mg/L ± 9.374 respectively. On the other hand,
the lowest heavy metals that found in both samples is Co with the concentration of
0.022mg/L ± 0.017 in tobacco leaves and 0.033mg/L ± 0.001 in local cigarettes.
Using Pearson's Two Tailed Correlation, Co, Cu, Fe and Ni in tobacco leaves is no
significant correlation with the metals in local cigarettes. The only significant
correlation was observed between them for some metals.
|
|---|