Determination of some heavy metal levels in soft drinks on the Ghanaian market using atomic absorption spectrometry method

Twenty-three soft drink samples (i.e., four pineapple-based fruit drinks, eight citrus-based fruit juices, one soya-based drink, three cola carbonated drinks, one apple-based fruit drink, and six cocktail fruit drinks) were randomly purchased from retail outlets in an urban market in Accra and analyzed for the concentrations of iron, cobalt, cadmium, zinc, lead, and copper using flame atomic absorption spectrometry. The mean concentration of iron and cadmium were 0.723 +/- 0.448 mg/L and 0.032 +/- 0.012 mg/L, respectively. The mean cobalt concentration was 0.071 +/- 0.049 mg/L, while the mean Zn concentration in the samples was 0.060 +/- 0.097 mg/L. The mean concentrations of Pb and Cu in the fruit juice samples were 0.178 +/- 0.091 mg/L and 0.053 +/- 0.063 mg/L respectively. About 78 % of the samples exceeded the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) maximum contaminant level of 0.3 mg/L prescribed for iron, whereas all the samples exceeded the USEPA maximum contaminant level of 0.005 mg/L prescribed for cadmium. About 91 % of the samples exceeded the EU maximum contaminant level prescribed for lead insoft drinks.