Original Articles
Ruchi D Sharma, Suparna Ghosh,
Abstract
Sugarcane is one of the most important cash crops in the tropics and subtropics, mainly used to manufacture crystal sugar. Sugarcane juice is consumed by people, thus the human health risk was measured using the concentration of total heavy metals in sugarcane juice. To obtain high production of sugar cane; we intensively use fertilizers, effluents, sewage sludge, industrial residues, sugar mill by-products, spent wash, pesticides, and herbicides, along with the use of highly producible sugar cane varieties. All of these efforts utilize the sources that contain heavy metals and thus increase heavy metals concentration in soils where sugarcane is grown. Short term exposure may not result into any serious harm but long-term consumption may result into contamination of sugarcane juice which in turn creates serious human health issues. In particular, it is important that the concentration of heavy metals such as lead (Pb) and arsenic (As) in edible parts of the plant are below the maximum limits for heavy metals in foods. The present paper presents a dipstick to check the presence of lead in sugarcane juice. The dipstick has been prepared by immobilizing a new reagent system on TLC paper. On contact with the sugarcane juice containing lead (Pb) dark blue color spot develops. Intensity of color depends on the concentration of lead in juice. Thus, the dipstick is helpful in on spot check of presence of lead in sugarcane juice and helps in health check.