Gadolinium of anthropogenic origin in food crops

Abstract

The study is focused on the monitoring of rare earth elements (REE) in food crops with particular interest paid to the evaluation of gadolinium of anthropogenic origin. Macroscopic fungi were used as they are culinary processed and being also a good indicator of environmental pollution. In total, 46 dried mushroom samples originating from the Czech Republic and Slovakia were analysed. When using microwave decomposition of samples and the elemental analysis of Ce, Dy, Er, Eu, Gd, Ho, La, Lu, Nd, Pr, Sm, Tb, Tm, Y, Yb using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), the respective analytical procedure was optimised and validated. The study also included the calculation of the gadolinium anomaly in the processed samples, as well as the calculation of the amount of anthropogenic gadolinium. In the case of the gadolinium monitored, the minimum value found was 1.41 μg kg−1; the maximum being 361 μg kg−1, and the average 33.7 μg kg−1. The contribution of gadolinium of the anthropogenic origin ranged from 0.77 to 270 g kg−1.