Determination of heavy metals (Cd, Pb, Cu) in some herbal drops by Polarography

Herbs are considered as effective remedies to heal diseases worldwide. As a result of given increasing trend of air, water and soil pollutions, health and quality of these herbs have now become a quite serious and important issue to be attention to. One of the main concerns is the presence of heavy metals in herbal drugs. In this study, the amount of lead, cadmium, and copper in edible herbal dribbles present in Iranian drug market have been measured with the aid of a polarography technique, Differential Pulse Stripping Voltammetry (DPSV). The simultaneous determination of the target elements was done in samples obtained from herbal drops present in citywide drugstores was performed. It was observed that the mean values of measured ions in the samples were beneath WHO and FDA’s standards and the concentration of cadmium in most samples was beneath the applied technique detection limit and consequently could not be traced