2014/12/31 by Souhila Terfi, Fatma Sadi
Chemistry · Environmental Science · Materials Science · #Clay minerals and soil interactions #Heavy Metals in Plants #Heavy metals in environment
paper · doi:10.1080/00032719.2014.976869
openalex publication_date 2014/12/31 · crossref created 2014/12/31 · crossref issued 2015/02/09 · crossref published 2015/02/09 · crossref published-online 2015/02/09 · crossref published-print 2015/05/03 · crossref deposited 2017/06/23 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref indexed 2026/08/01 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
The goal of the present study was to establish the best procedure for the extraction of metals from medicinal plants. Wet ashing, dry ashing, and microwave digestion methods were applied with different mixtures of nitric and hydrochloric acids using Malva sylvestris L. and Pistacia lentiscus leaves collected from two sites in Algeria. Cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, and zinc were determined by atomic absorption spectrometry. There were significant differences in the metal concentrations extracted by the methods. The highest efficiency from the leaves were obtained using a dry ashing method using 4:1 HNO3:HCl (v:v), and this approach was considered to be the optimum procedure. However, the wet and microwave digestion methods were suitable for this extraction but with reduced digestion efficiency. The extraction method has a significant influence on the measured metal concentrations, which emphasizes the need to choose the optimum procedure.