Assessment of Mineral Compositions in Ginger Roots Using Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS)

Abstract

The aim of this study was to assess the composition of mineral elements in various ginger root samples. The study assessed the concentrations of the mineral elements Ca, Cu, Fe, Se, Mg, Zn, Na, P, K, and Mn in samples of ginger roots collected from Kilimanjaro, Morogoro, Iringa, Mbeya and Kagera regions. The collected ginger root samples were cleaned, oven dried, grinded to fine powder and diluted in concentrated acids. The solution samples obtained were analyzed for the mineral elements by using an Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS) method. The mean concentrations of the analyzed elements were calculated and it was found that the ginger samples had higher composition of Calcium (Ca),Magnesium (Mg), Sodium (Na), Iron (Fe), and Potassium (K) followed by Manganese (Mn) then Zinc (Zn) and Copper (Cu) and lastly no amount of Selenium (Se) was detected since its mean concentrations  were below the detection limit (0.50) mg/kg for the spectrometer used in this study. The respective mean concentrations of the analyzed mineral elements were; 3.00 mg/kg (for Ca), 3.00 mg/kg (for Mg), 3.00 mg/kg (for Fe), 3.00 mg/kg (for P), 3.00 mg/kg (for K), 3.00 mg/kg (for Na), 2.40 mg/kg (for Cu), 2.80 mg/kg (for Mn) and 0.00 mg/kg (for Se).