Survey of cadmium, lead, and arsenic in sesame from Iran

Background: Sesame is one of the most consumed oilseeds in human food in the whole world. In various forms, it is used for the preparation of foods, cookies, cakes, and so on. This study was applied for the determination of lead, cadmium, and arsenic in 80 samples of sesame purchased from supermarkets in Khorasan province, Iran. Results: The results showed that arsenic is one of the trace elements in crops (edible plants) with an average concentration of 54 ng g^−1, and three (3.75%) samples were above the maximum tolerated level of Pb in Iran (100 ng g^−1) regulations. Conclusions: The results were obtained after complete digestion of these samples and determination using graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry and hydride generation atomic absorption spectrophotometry and indicate that 96.25% of the sesame samples could be suitable for human food.