Arsenic is an element of concern due to its toxicity even at low levels and it is a known human carcinogen. Research studies have been done on arsenic content of rice and chicken, two most commonly consumed food products. The levels of arsenic found varied depending on the variety of rice and chicken, with some brands having alarmingly high levels of arsenic. Previous studies done in our lab involving rice and standard reference rice material showed that the extraction efficiency of arsenic is very low (40 % or less) using sample digestion on a hot block. Thus, we need to modify our sample digestion method in order to increase the extraction efficiency of arsenic in rice, chicken and seafood using hot block digestion since we do not have a more efficient microwave digester. SRM 1568b rice flour and a few brands of ground white and brown rice were digested in 0.28 M HNO3 in a closed vessel at 95 oC following FDA EAM Section 4.1, then analyzed for arsenic using graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry. SRM1566b oyster tissue and ground red and white chicken meat were digested in concentrated HNO3 followed by the addition of 30 % H2O2. Our preliminary data indicates very low arsenic recoveries for rice (30 % or less). None of the chicken meat tested showed detectable levels of arsenic, however, only a 63 % recovery of arsenic in SRM1566b oyster tissue was achieved. We plan on finding a more effective hot block digestion procedure for both rice and chicken meat to improve our % recoveries.

Maximizing the extraction efficiency of arsenic in solid matrices followed by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometric analysis

249th National Meeting (2015)

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