In the past, it was found out that one out of five Ayurvedic Herbal Medicine products, which originated from South Asia was adulterated with toxic heavy metals, and was considered to be unhealthy for consumption. This created an immediate need for finding a suitable testing laboratory and method for the various herbal food and medicine manufacturing companies. Out of all the confusion caused in finding a perfect and suitable technique, a technique rose as the supreme standard technique as it provided the highest of all metals, and if a sample was utilizing this method, and it passed, it will also pass all the other tests thrown at it. This combination utilized a microwave digestion system for the sample preparation and conduction sample analysis using an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer.

Microwave Digestion System

The sample digestion technique of the microwave digestion system made it possible for the samples to be prepared in a closed system, within high pressure and temperature, without losing volatile analyte such as arsenic and mercury, which are losing easily otherwise when the sample is digested using open digestion method.