HEAVY METAL CONCENTRATION AND MICROBIAL CONTAMINATION IN THE SUGAR COLLECTED FROM DIFFERENT MARKETS OF KHULNA CITY, KHULNA (MS Thesis)- Degree Awarded

Abstract:

Sugar is a commonly used daily commodity of most of the household of Bangladesh. It is an end product of sugarcane juice. This sugar can be contaminated with different microbial agent during the processing, handling or other factors. During the cultivation of sugarcane, different types of heavy metal may come to the plant and thus may available in sugar as the soil also contaminated with different types of heavy metal. Both the microbial agents and heavy metals can be hazardous for human health. That is why it is necessary to know the presence of microbial agent and heavy metal of a daily commodity like sugar. This study has been conducted to know the status of microbial contamination and heavy metal concentration of different types of sugar available in Khulna city. For this purpose, 15 samples have been collected from five markets of Khulna city with three types of sugar such as packet sugar, white sugar and brown sugar. E. coli and fecal coliform contamination determination were done to know the microbial presence and Pb, Cd, Cr and Cu concentration were analyzed to find out the heavy metals. Analyzing all the sample in lab, E. coli contamination has been found in some of the samples at small amount. The highest value is 0.8 cfu/g in the brown sugar sample collected from Moylapota. Fecal coliform also found in most of samples where highest value is 1.1 cfu/g found in brown sugar collected from Dak Bangla. According to gulf standard, there should be no microbes in food item. On the other hand, heavy metal such as Pb is found in most of the samples. Highest value of Pb is 2.76 mg/kg which is much greater than the WHO/FAO permissible limit 0.1 mg/kg and 0.5mg/kg. Cd and Cu were also found in most of the samples and all the values exceed the WHO/FAO standard limit. Only Cr concentration is lower than the WHO/FAO standard value 2.3 mg/kg. So, the sugar is contaminated with both microbes and heavy metals which may cause health hazard. Organic agriculture and chemical free processing and careful packaging would be a solution for this microbes and heavy metal in sugar.

• Supervision