The analysis of heavy metal content such as lead, copper, and cadmium in traditional Chinese medicine with microwave digestion method and ash method

• Main Authors: YING-LING HUNG, 洪盈鈴
• Other Authors: SHIEH,BOR-JINN
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/40732028128334364071

碩士 === 中原大學 === 化學研究所 === 96 === Abstract The quality control (QC) of traditional Chinese medicine has not yet established a universal standard. Most pharmaceutical factories refer to various foreign stipulations to formulate their own quality control protocols, which have not done much to regulate the heavy metal content in different kinds of traditional Chinese medicine. Pharmaceutical factories use colorimetry to examine lead in Chinese medicine, but these factories are not enforced to inspect other heavy metal content. Though the Taiwanese Herbal Pharmacopoeia has established inspection standards, they are for limited raw material, not for all Chinese medicine. In order to protect general users’ use safety of Chinese medicine and to set universal standards to improve quality control, it is necessary to research and regulate the heavy metals content in Chinese medicine. The research approach to experimental analysis is to purchase traditional Chinese medicine from domestic traders or apothecaries. The traditional Chinese medicine is mainly divided into three categories— Plant, animal, and mineral. The category of plant includes flower, fruit, seed, root, stem, bark, leaf, and grass. In general, since various types of traditional Chinese medicine are solid, they could be processed by different pre-processing methods to compare the differenences. Before the analysis, Dry Ash method and Microwave Digestion methods need to be used to digest testing samples, and then use flame atom absorption spectroscopes made by different instrumental manufacturers to do the chemical examinations. The result of this experiment is obtaining Fructus Jujubae(plant category) that digests 62.3-70.2% sample recovery with the Ash method, the Concha Haliotidis (mineral category) is 5.3 -5.5%, the cicada slough (animal category) rate is 58.5 - 77.8%. The Fructus Jujubae that digests its sample recovery with the microwave digestion method is 103.6 -103.7%, the Concha Haliotidis is 94.5- 101.1%, the cicada slough is 104.6 - 110.7%. By comparing the results from different pre-processing methods, Microwave Digestion method is better. After the completion of lead and cadmium in the minerals like Margarita (1) 、Margarita (2)、 Realgar 、Concha Haliotidis、Gypsum Fibrosum by the microwave digestion method, and then use different flame atom absorption spectroscopes (AA) to do the examination, the data shows that by using method II (PE AA3300 microwave digestion method) digestion and the lead element with 283.3 nm wave length, the result of the examination is respectively 50.632 ppm, 49.584 ppm, 10.968 ppm, 50.405 ppm, 17.237 ppm; by using method IV (Varian AA280 microwave digestion method) digestion and the lead element with 283.3 nm wave length, the result of the examination is respectively 15.452 ppm, 8.325 ppm, 7.625 ppm, 9.446 ppm, 2.589 ppm; by using method II digestion and cadmium element, the result of the examination is respectively 2.912 ppm, 2.814 ppm, 1.415 ppm, 2.129 ppm, 1.038 ppm; by using method IV digestion and cadmium element, the result of the examination is respectively 0.056 ppm, 0.104 pm, 0.209 ppm, 0.102 ppm, 0.047 ppm. According to the result, the differences of the two methods are oversized, so we have to wait until further research confirmation in the future. However, by using lead under 217.0 nm wave length to do the examination, the collected data are very different, and the relatively standard deviation (RDS) of most traditional Chinese medicine is above 100%. Thus, we can make the conclusion that this wave length is not suitable to be used for traditional Chinese medicine detection spectrum.