Leaching of aluminium from cooking pans and food containers

Aluminium is not an essential element to humans, and is considered to be a toxic metal ion. Since Al pans are the most commonly used cooking utensils in rural places an acoustic wave sensor was developed to quantify the amount of metal leaching when cooking some recipes. Sensitive layer of the sensor consists of a membrane with a specific ionophore for the aluminium, in a PVC/plasticizer matrix. Red cabbage samples cooked with different acidic additives (lemon juice, wine vinegar and cider apple vinegar) showed that low pH values increased leaching of aluminium. Red cabbage cooked with lemon juice at pH 2.6 showed 5.1 mg Al/100 g red cabbage. Tomato sauce cooked with and without sugar, showed 2.7 ± 0.2 and 4.9 ± 0.2 mg Al/100 g tomato sauce, respectively. The same samples, stored in aluminium containers in a refrigerator for 48 h, showed 2.8 ± 0.2 and 5.0 ± 0.2 mg Al/100 g tomato sauce, respectively. Results obtained with the new piezoelectric aluminium sensor are not statistically significant different ( α = 0.05), both in terms of accuracy and precision, from the ones obtained by UV–vis methodology.