Determination of Major and Trace Elements in the Tea Leaves by ICP-AES

Tea is one of the most popular beverages in the world. In recent years, the components in tea leaves have received great concern because they are related to heath and disease. Tea contains 14 trace elements essential for human, which have positive effects on health. Such as Fe, it is part of hemoglobin. Iron deficiency can cause anemia. Zn deficiency will affect the appetite, mental retardation and neurological dysfunction. Also there is a certain range of the element amount that human daily needs. Selenium, the Research Council of the United States Food and Nutrition Board (USRDA) considers that the daily intake of youth and adult is appropriate 50-200 μg. Tea leaves can supply these trace elements above. And the detection of multi-elements in tea leaves is very important. ICP-AES (Inductive Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectrometry) has been extensively applied to the determination of major and trace elements in biological and environmental samples. ICP emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) is highly sensitive allows simultaneously analysis of multiple elements, and features a wide dynamic range. It can therefore be used for efficient analysis not only of the principle high-concentration constituents, but of trace elements as well.

We introduce here the use of the multi-type ICPE-9000 for quantitative of the content of Ca, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Na, P, S, Se and Zn.