International Journal of Marine Science 2015, Vol.5, No.25, 1-9
1
Research Article Open Access
Determination of heavy metals in low value food fish from commercial landing
centers (India) by Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometer
M. Pravinkumar
1
, A. R. Logesh
2
, C. Vishwanathan
1
, G. Ponnusamy
1
, V. Elumalai
3
, S.M. Raffi
1
, K. Kathiresan
1
1. Centre of Advanced Study in Marine Biology, Faculty of Marine Sciences, Annamalai University, Parangipettai-608 502, India
2. National Botanical Research Institute, Rana Pratap Marg, Lucknow-226 001, India
3. Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Aquaculture, Chirala Mandal, Andra Pradesh-523 157, India
Corresponding author email
International Journal of Marine Science, 2015, Vol.5, No.25 doi: 10.5376/ijms.2015.05.0025
Received: 21 Dec., 2014
Accepted: 27 Mar., 2015
Published: 20 Apr., 2015
Copyright
©
2015
Pravinkumar et al., This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article:
Pravinkumar et al., 2015, Determination of heavy metals in low value food fish from commercial landing centers (India) by Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical
Emission Spectrometer, International Journal of Marine Science, Vol.5, No.25 1
-
9 (doi
Abstract
A bio-monitoring study was performed to investigate certain metals (cadmium, cobalt, copper, iron, magnesium,
manganese, nickel, lead, zinc, aluminium and boron), using Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometer (ICP-OES)
for the assessment of the present status in the two coastal ecosystems and compiling the baseline data for future monitoring. Tissue
samples of fishes have different level of accumulation viz, Cd = 0.07-0.40, Co = 0-0.32, Cu = 0.53–0.39, Fe = 1.42–8.12, Mg =
9.74–33.1, Mn = 0.08–0.84, Ni = 0.01–0.97, Pb = 0.12–2.05, Zn = 0.81–2.11, Al = 1.26-3.98, Cr = 0.25-1.76 and B = 0.17-1.87 µg g
-1
dry wt. respectively. The rate of metal accumulation higher in species (
Thalassoma trilobatum and Saurida tumbil)
. Concentration of
toxic metals such as Cd and Pb were well above the permissible limits proposed by the World Health Organization and Food and
Agricultural Organizations.
Keywords
Trash fish; Low value food fish; Metal accumulation; ICP-OES; Cuddalore; Pazhayar
Introduction
Marine organisms, in general, accumulate
contaminants from the environment and therefore
have been extensively used in marine pollution
monitoring programmes (UNEP, 1993; Uthe et al.,
1991). In many countries, significant alterations in
industrial development lead to an increased discharge
of chemical effluents into the ecosystem, leading to
damage of marine habitats. Metal contamination has
been identified as a concern in coastal environment,
due to discharges from industrial wastes, agricultural
and urban sewage. Metals, normally occurring in
nature, are not harmful to the environment, because
they play an essential role in tissue metabolism and
growth of plants and animals (Amundsen et al., 1997).
Bioavailability of dietary metals is still not considered
in regulatory guidelines (US Environmental Protection
Agency, 1992), but dietary exposure may be a major
uptake route for many potentially toxic metals in the
marine fish.
Metals such as iron, copper, zinc, magnesium and
manganese, are essential metals, since they play an
important role in biological systems, whereas
nonessential metals, such as Cd, Co Ni and Pb, and
are toxic even in trace levels. The essential metals can
also produce toxic effects at higher concentrations.
Only a few metals of proven hazardous nature are to
be completely excluded in food for human
consumption. Thus, only three metals, namely lead
cadmium and mercury, have been included in the
regulations of the European Union for hazardous
metals (EEC, 2001), while the USFDA (United States
of Food and Drug Administration) has included
further three elements, namely, chromium, arsenic and
nickel in the list (Sivaperumal et al., 2007). Metal
discharged into the marine environment can damage
both species diversity and ecosystems, due to their
toxicity and accumulative behaviour (Matta et al.,
1999).
Among the food products available, fish is currently
considered as one of the most important foods
(Carvalho et al., 2005). Fishes are at the top of the
aquatic food chain and may accumulate large amounts
of metals from water, food or sediments. In the field
and laboratory studies showed that accumulation of
heavy metals in the tissue depends mainly on metal
