Elemental composition and contaminants of saffron from different origins and geographical discrimination using chemometrics

Abstract

Elements such as As, Cd, Cr and Pb are classified as contaminants of major concern for public health, due to their high degree of toxicity. Saffron is an important medicinal herbal spice used in variety of food items, pharmaceutical medicines, and cosmetics. Presence of heavy metals in saffron will increase the health risk to consumers. Also, authentication of geographical origin of saffron is an issue of utmost importance for global trading. The present study is focused on investigation of elemental contaminants in saffron and elemental composition of saffron from India (Jammu and Kashmir); Iran and Afghanistan are also explored for geographical discrimination, using Chemometrics. In total, 29 elements including Ag, Al, As, B, Ba, Be, Ca, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, K, Li, Mg, Mn, Mo, Na, Ni, P, Pb, Sb, Se, Si, Sr, Ti, Tl, V and Zn were analyzed using ICP-OES. Toxic elemental contaminants including As, Cd, Pb were found below the maximum permissible limit. Using PCA, elements B, Ni, Ba, Fe, V, Si, Al, Ti, K, Na, Sr, and Zn were found as significant discriminators of geographical origin. Elemental composition of saffron may be utilized, to prevent cases of falsified geographical origin in trade.

Keywords:

• Elemental composition
• ICP-OES
• saffron
• elemental contaminants

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the research facilities received from Director, CSIR-NPL, New Delhi. The author Leena Kumari, is also grateful for the sponsorship support from Director, ICAR-CIPHET, Ludhiana and academic support from ACSIR (Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research) for Ph.D. The author is also thankful to Director, ICAR CITH, Srinagar, O.C Sharma (ICAR-CITH), Javid Iqbal Mir (ICAR-CITH), Raouf Malik (SKUAST, Srinagar), Javid Ahmed Guny (All Jammu and Kashmir saffron/dry fruit growers, Cooperative Association) for providing the saffron samples essential for research work.

Ethical approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

Authors’ contributions

Leena Kumari: conceptualization, investigation, methodology, formal analysis, writing original draft; S. Swarupa Tripathy: conceptualization, supervision, resources, review & editing.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that there is no competing interest.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to rights of sponsoring Institutes but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request with permission of sponsoring institute.

Additional information

Funding

No funding information is available.