Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy for Quantitative Evaluation of Heavy Metals and Trace Elements in Daruharidra: a Rapid and Comprehensive Restoration Scheme for Quality Assurance of Herbal Plants from Market Place

With the recent increasing demand of herbal drugs among populations worldwide it is important to establish the identity, purity and quality assurance of herbs. Due to various factors such as soil, climatic conditions, human activities, presence and distribution of heavy metals is very likely. The present study reveals the heavy metal profile by atomic absorption spectrophotometry in various samples marketed as Daruharidra. Although all the metals studied viz., copper (Cu), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb) and zinc (Zn) have been found under permissible limits, the concentrations suggest the variation in the geographical location of the herbs collected thus indicating an evidence of the importance of ideal screening of metals in herbs. This study also indicates the simplicity and convenience of the AAS method which can effectively be adopted at an industrial level for the quality control and standardization of all herbs.