Determinação de elementos potencialmente tóxicos por meio de espectrometria de absorção atômica em amostras de café torrado e moído

Abstract

Coffee is a food consumed daily in the world, it is very versatile and can be used to produce both drinks and food. This fruit contributed and still contributes a lot to the development of Brazil, contributing to the economy and also being present in the culture of the Brazilian people. The present work aimed to analyze, through atomic absorption spectrometry, the incidence of potentially toxic elements, in two samples of Arabica coffee, roasted and ground. The preparation of the samples was done through three different methods, namely: traditional acid digestion, acid digestion assisted by ultrasound and digestion in alkaline medium. The elements analyzed were: Cadmium (Cd), Chromium (Cr), Copper (Cu), Nickel (Ni) and Lead (Pb), components responsible for affecting the quality of coffee and providing damage to the health of those who consume it when present in quantities above what is permitted by law. The methods of acid digestion assisted by ultrasound and basic digestion were efficient in extracting the elements, taking into account less time spent and also less consumption of samples and reagents in the analysis. However, taking into account the accuracy parameters, we did not obtain sufficient reliability for the method to be precise and exact, a result that we can tie to the low coefficients of determination (R2) of the calibration curves.