The assessment of physical, chemical and microbial quality of bottled water in Hamadan, Iran in 2016

The consumption of bottled water in various parts of the world have significantly increased. The aim of this study was to evaluate the physical, chemical and microbial quality of bottled waters in Hamadan in 2016.

This research is a descriptive cross-sectional study, that was carried out on 5 popular brands and 40 randomly selected samples, in which 20 types of physical, chemical and microbial characteristics were investigated. All data were analysed using the statistical software package, SPSS 20.0 and descriptive statistics.

The results showed that none of the samples had microbial contamination and passed the required standards. Total dissolved solids (TDS) content are lower than the minimum values required by the Food and Drug Administration (500 mg/L). The differences between the measured and labeled values was investigated using paired t-test. Based on the results, there were differences between the measured and labeled values for all parameters, where for the parameters of nitrite, TDS and chloride it was significant, while for the rest of the parameters it was not significant. The mean values of the parameters were also compared with the standard values using one sample t-test.

For the most samples, the assessed parameters were consistent with the standards, however, for the few number of samples which violates from the standard values it was also important in terms of the possible health impacts, thus should be taken into consideration.