HEAVY METALS IN SOME SELECTED SOFT DRINKS

ABSTRACT

Food and drinks in Nigeria have been reported to contain heavy metals which may or may not be essential to the human health. Some of these heavy metals have concentrations higher than the specified limit given by THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION (WHO) for food and drinks in Nigeria. This research was carried out to compare the level of zine, copper, chromium. cadmium, lead in some selected soft drinks, with the WHO recommended limit. These heavy metals were estimated using AAS after digesting the samples with nitric acid, HNO₁. In the results that was obtained, chromium was found to be above permissible limit set by WHO in all of the samples with a range of 0.08-0.13mg/l, copper was below detection limit in Lacasera and Chapman and was lower than the WHO permissible limit in Fanta, Viju milk, 7up with a range of 0.01-0.03mg/l, zine was below the permissible limit in all the samples with a range of 0.24-1.40 and Lead was below detection limit for Lacasera, chapman but Fanta, Viju milk and 7up had the actual limit (0.01mg/1) set by WHO for lead in food and drinks.