In January of 2012, Consumer Reports found 10% of apple juice samples tested from five brands had total arsenic levels above the drinking water standard of 10 parts per billion. Most of that arsenic was inorganic arsenic, a known carcinogen. American apple juice is made from apple concentrate, a majority of which is imported from China. Inorganic arsenic has been detected as AsH3 following hydride reduction and analysis by atomic adsorption (AA) or inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometery (ICP-MS). The cost of this type of analytical instrumentation is in the $60-200K price range.
Many labs would have to choose the older colorimetric methods but we have developed and modified a simple and sensitive hydride generation-photoionization detector (PID) method for arsenic in water analysis at ppb levels (1) to work with food and juice. The system cost is a fraction of the $60K spectrometer price.
We will describe the modifications of a new method for arsenic in apple juice.
- Driscoll, JN and GA Cutter, “Total and Speciated Arsenic Compounds in Water by Photoionization and Gas Chromatography/PID”in "Toxic Trace Metal Remobilization & Remediation - A Geochemical Body of Work" to be published by the ACS (2012)