International Journal of Ayurveda and Pharmaceutical Chemistry

11

Authors: G.Y.S.K. Swamy1 *and P. Sivanarayanan

Medicinal plants contain essential and trace elements, which are very important for the human body. India had a rich experience of health benefits through utilising many varieties of Ayurvedic medicinal herbs. Our emphasis in the current paper is on the characterization of five Medicinal plants (Oroxylum indicum (Linn.) Vent., Leucas indica (L.) R. Br. Ex Vatke, Premna tomentosa (Willd.), Piper chaba (Hunter) and Hedychium spicatum (Buch.-Ham.) for their macro and microelement contents using wavelength dispersive X-ray fluorescence (WD-XRF) spectrometry. The applicability of the method particularly for the simultaneous determination of sixteen elements (Na, Mg, Al, Si, P, S, Cl, K, Ca, Cr, Mn, Fe, Cu, Zn, Ba and Pb) in biological matrices has been evaluated in terms of the detection limit, precision and accuracy. The method was validated by analyzing five Chinese certified reference materials (NCS ZC73012 (cabbage), NCS ZC73013 (spinach), NCS ZC73017 (apple), NCS ZC85006 (tomato) and NCS DC73348 (bush, branches and leaves)) of vegetable standards. In general, good agreement was achieved between certified values and measured ones with recoveries ranging from 92 to 108%. The WD-XRF method proposed proved to be an effective tool for the investigation and quality control processes of vegetation samples.