Description of the study area
The study was conducted on the four main mango growing districts of Wolaita Zone, namely, Boloso Bombe, Boloso Sore, Damot Woyde and Humbo in 2020. The zone is situated from 6'N-7.1'N latitude and 37.4'E-38.2'E longitude with an average altitude of 1750 meters and ranges between 501 and 3000 meters above sea level. It is bounded to the North and the North East by Kambata Tambaro Zone, to the West and South West by Dawaro zone, to the south by Gamo Gofa Zone and to the East by Sidama. There are 3 agro-ecological zones in the Zone out of which Dega accounts 9%, Weynadega 56% and Kolla 35% (
WZFEDD, 2012).
Sample collection and preparation
Mature, healthy and fresh mango fruits were collected from the farmlands of four Districts of Wolaita Zone. These include Boloso Bombe, Boloso Sore, Damot Woyde and Humbo. The sampling sites were selected based on large-scale production area of mango in Wolaita Zone. To collect the representative sample composite samples were taken from each sampling site. Three composite samples of fresh mango were collected from each sample site and put in clean polyethylene plastic bags and brought to the laboratory for further pre-treatment (
Desta and Ataklti, 2015).
The collected mango fruit was washed with a running tap water to remove adsorbed soil particulates and then rinsed with distilled water. The outer skin of mango sample was removed by Teflon knife and flesh part chopped in to pieces to facilitate drying. The sample was exposed to sun light for three days to reduce the moisture content and subsequently dried in the drying oven at 80°C for 24 hours to constant weight. The dried sample was powdered using electronic blender and sieved to prepare fine powder of mango for digestion (
Desta and Ataklti, 2015) and all experiments were conducted in Wolaita Sodo University.
Optimization of digestion procedure
To select an optimum procedure for digestion parameters like digestion time, reagent volume, volume ratio of reagents and digestion temperature were optimized by varying one parameter at a time and keeping the others constant. Parameters giving clear solution at lower temperature, requiring minimum reagent volume and digestion time were selected as an optimum procedure for digestion of mango samples (
AOAC, 1990). Among the tested procedures reagent mixture of 3 ml of HClO
4, 1 ml of HNO
3 and 1 ml of H
2O
2, digestion temperature 180°C and digestion time 120 minute were selected as optimum for digestion of 0.5 g of mango sample.
Applying the optimized wet digestion conditions, 0.5 g of prepared samples of mango were digested on a Kjeldahl digestion apparatus fitted with a reflux condenser till the clear solution was observed. The sample was digested by using mixture of HNO
3 and HClO
4. The clear solution was filtered into 100 mL volumetric flasks through Whatman paper. It was diluted with distilled water up to the mark and stored for further analysis
(Huang et al., 2004; Gaudino et al., 2007; Wilson et al., 2005).
Instrument calibration
Calibration metal standard solutions were prepared for each of the metals from an intermediate standard solution containing 10 mg/L from the atomic absorption spectroscopy standard stock solutions that contain 1000 mg/L. These intermediate standards were diluted with distilled water to obtain four working standards for each metal of interest. Then, Na, K, Ca, Mg, Zn, Mn, Fe, Pb and Cd were analyzed with FAAS (
Desta and Ataklti, 2015).
Three replicate determinations were carried out on each sample. All metals were analyzed by absorption/concentration mode and the instrument readout was recorded for each solution manually. The same analytical procedure was employed for the determination of elements in digested blank solutions (
Mebrahtu and Chandravanshi, 2016).
Analysis of metals in mango
The digested sample of mango was taken in triplicate and the selected metals (Na, K, Ca, Mg, Fe, Mn, Zn, Cd and Pb) were analyzed by using Flame atomic absorption spectrophotometer equipped with deuterium arc background corrector using air acetylene flame (
Desta and Ataklti, 2015).
Method performance and method validation
To validate the analytical method, parameters such as; precision, accuracy (in terms of recovery), method detection limit, limit of quantitation (LOQ), analysis of laboratory control sample, matrix spike and matrix spike duplicate were carried out
(Chauhan et al., 2015).
Method detection limits
The limit of detection is most commonly defined as the mass of analyte that gives a signal equal to three times the standard deviation on the blank (
Butcher and Sneddon, 1998). In the present study, seven blank samples were digested and analyzed for metal concentrations of Na, K, Ca, Mg, Fe, Zn, Mn, Pb and Cd in triplicate by flame atomic absorption spectrophotometer (FAAS). The standard deviation for each element was calculated from the seven blank measurements to determine method detection limit of the instrument. Then the method detection limit of each element was calculated as three times the standard deviation of the blank (3σblank, n = 7).
Recovery tests
To check the efficiency of developed optimized procedures, spiking experiments in which known volume and concentration of standard solutions were employed. Each sample was determined for their respective spiked metals by flame atomic absorption spectrophotometer (FAAS). The spiked and non-spiked samples were digested and analyzed in similar condition. Then the percentage recovery of the analyte was calculated as: