Of all heavy metals only a few are essential for the metabolism of plants and animals, others have a certain toxic potential and therefore underlie strict regulations. Arsenic, Lead, Cadmium and Mercury are considered as such elements.

Contaminations with these heavy metals are often a result of industrial emissions and thus the site of agricultural crop land is crucial. Other sources of contamination are a processing and storage. An ion-exchanger, fining agents, tanks, pipelines and paints can lead to harmful concentrations.

Regulations define limits for the heavy metals mentioned above for all different kinds of food.

Further regulations for these and other heavy metals are existing for wine, drinking-, mineral-, table- and spring water, as well as for meat and additives.

GfL offers you all popular atom-absorption-spectrometry analysing methods. Among others the following parameters can be detected:

• Lead
• Thallium
• Cadmium
• Chromium
• Mercury
• Nickel
• Arsenic
• Selenium
• Copper
• Tin
• Zinc

For answering your questions our contact persons are gladly at your disposal at any time.