Abstract
Composed of an oxidizer, fuel, metallic powders, and binders, sparkler candles are widely used on birthdays and celebrations. A procedure for the determination of Al, Ba, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Sr, and Ti in sparkler candles by microwave plasma optical emission spectrometry (MIP OES) was developed to evaluate the presence of potentially toxic elements. Different commercial candles were analyzed before and after ignition. Moreover, the remainder analytes were determined on the surface where the ignition was carried out. Based on a Box-Behnken experiment, the optimized digestion conditions were 5.0 mol L−1 HNO3 and 35-min digestion time at 80 °C. Commercial candles analyzed before ignition present mass fractions ranging from 0.37 to 7.95% m m−1 Al, 16.73 to 26.00% m m−1 Ba, 5.68 to 16.91 mg kg−1 Cd, 21.01 to 475.08 mg kg−1 Cr, 134.72 to 11,738.51 mg kg−1 Cu, 0.31 to 21.41% m m−1 Fe, 58.89 to 12,973.00 mg kg−1 Sr, and 22.22 to 6,450.04 mg kg−1 Ti. The recovery of the procedure, evaluated by spike experiments of the digested samples, presented results between 82 and 118%, with RSD < 20%. Health risk assessment was performed, and parameters as estimated daily intake (EDI), total hazard quotient (THQ), and hazard index (HI) were considered. According to the results, sparkler candles are potential contamination sources regarding human health when they are not used correctly.
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Funding
This study was supported by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) through projects 141315/2017–2, 180211/2020–0, and 308178/2018–1 provided to J.M.H., R.L.L, and ARAN; Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior (CAPES, Finance Code 001); and Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP, 2018/26145–9). This is a contribution of the National Institute of Advanced Analytical Science and Technology (INCTAA).
This is an original research article that has neither been published previously or considered presently for publication elsewhere. All authors named in the manuscript are entitled to the authorship and have approved the final version of the submitted manuscript.
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Julymar Marcano de Higuera: Investigation, performing experiments, and writing-original draft. Ivero Pita de Sá: Investigation and formal analysis. Raiza Lanzotti Landgraf: Investigation and performing experiments. Ana Rita A. Nogueira: Conceptualization, supervision, funding acquisition, and writing-review and editing.
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Julymar Marcano de Higuera declares that he has no conflict of interest. Ivero Pita de Sá declares that he has no conflict of interest. Raiza Lanzotti Landgraf declares that she has no conflict of interest. Ana Rita de Araujo Nogueira declares that she has no conflict of interest.
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de Higuera, J.M., de Sá, I.P., Landgraf, R.L. et al. Determination of Al, Ba, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Sr, and Ti in Sparkler Candles by MIP OES. Food Anal. Methods 15, 317–329 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12161-021-02125-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12161-021-02125-x