Central European Journal of Chemistry * E-mail: lukasz.komsta@am.lublin.pl A preliminary study on the effect of mineralization parameters on determination of metals in Viscum album species Received 15 June 2009; Accepted 26 September 2009 Abstract: An increasing interest in determination of various macro- and microelements in medicinal plants has been observed. The majority of studies are carried out using one mineralization method without any optimization. The present study demonstrates that changes in mineralization parameters can signifcantly affect the recovery of the elements determined. In the study, the dried plant material was mineralized in 12 ways and iron (Fe), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), nickel (Ni) and manganese (Mn) levels were determined. The samples were mineralized in the dry or open microwave mode as well as 10 closed microwave modes. The infuence of acid amounts, irradiation power and time, addition of hydrogen peroxide and perfuoric acid was examined. All parameters were shown to be critical - good effciency was observed with larger amounts of acid. The determined content varied signifcantly in the same sample and were in the ranges (ug g -1 ): 46 – 136 (Fe), 1.4 – 11.8 (Cu), 4.0 – 11.3 (Ni), 15.4 – 53.8 (Zn) and 9.5 – 67.6 (Mn). Increased irradiation resulted in the loss of copper and zinc and better recovery of nickel. The results demonstrate that such determinations should include the mineralization optimization step. © Versita Sp. z o.o. Keywords: Medicinal plants • Heavy metals • Mineralization parameters • Ion chromatography • Natural drugs 1 Department of Analytical Chemistry, Medical University of Lublin, 20-081 Lublin, Poland 2 Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Medical University of Lublin, 20-090 Lublin, Poland Eliza Blicharska 1 , Łukasz Komsta 2* , Ryszard Kocjan 1 , Anna Gumieniczek 2 , Artur Robak 1 Short Communication 1. Introduction Medicinal plants are considered as plants which have potential medicinal properties. They are grown or collected from natural sources, then consumed in various forms as medicines. In recent years, there is an increasing interest in their use all over the world, as an alternative to traditional therapy. Different parts of plants are used as spices, herbs, food dressing and additives or herbal teas. Although the effciency of herbal therapy can be as high as that of chemical drugs, the safety of their use has often been questioned due to the presence of high unacceptable levels of heavy metals [1-5]. The environmental pollution and contamination with toxic heavy metals has been considered a signifcant problem. The main sources are industrial and traffc emissions, use of purifcation mud and metal-containing agricultural products [6], which increase heavy metal concentrations in soil, resulting in elevated levels of these metals in food and herbs. The heavy metal levels in plants depend on the geochemical characteristics of the soil and the ability of plants to accumulate them selectively [7]. Moreover, the content of non-toxic microelements is also important because their content may have signifcant infuence on their therapeutic action [8]. Therefore, the scientifc interest in the heavy metal content in medicinal plants is topical. Numerous studies concerning heavy metal levels in medicinal plants were carried out in Algeria [9], Austria [10,11], Bulgaria [12], China [13-17], Malaysia [18], Nigeria [19], Poland [20-22], Serbia [23] and Turkey [24,25]. Cent. Eur. J. Chem. • 8(2) • 2010 • 264–268 DOI: 10.2478/s11532-009-0133-9 264