The excessive amounts of cadmium and lead in food chain can cause health problems for humans and ecosystem. Rice is an important food in human diet. Therefore this study was conducted in order to investigate cadmium and Lead concentrations in seed rice (Oryza saliva) of paddy fields in southwest of Iran. A total of 70 rice seed samples were collected from paddy fields in five regions of Khuzestan province, Southwest Iran, during harvesting time. In the samples cadmium and Lead concentrations were measured. To assess the daily intake of Cadmium and Lead by rice, daily consumption of rice was calculated. The results showed that average concentrations of Cadmium and Lead in rice seeds were 273.6 and 121.8 μg/kg, respectively. Less than 72% of rice seed samples had Cadmium concentrations above 200 μg/kg (i.e. Guide value for cadmium); and less than 3% had Lead concentrations above 150 μg/kg (i.e. Guide value for Lead). The estimated daily intakes of cadmium by the local population was calculated to 0.59 μg/day kg bw, which corresponds to 59% of the tolerable daily intakes (i.e. 1 μg/day kg bw). Eleven out of 70 samples (15.71%) exceed the tolerable daily intakes. The dietary intakes for Lead in the local population ranged from 0.22 to 0.47 μg/day kg bw. Tolerable daily intakes for Lead is 3.6 μg/day kg bw. As a whole, long term consumption of the local rice may bear high risk of heavy metal exposure to the consumer in the study region.

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Background: Nowadays, removal of heavy metals from the environment is an important problem due to their toxicity. Objectives: In this study, a modified method was used to synthesize chitosan-coated magnetite nanoparticles (CCMN) to be used as a low cost and nontoxic adsorbent. CCMN was then employed to remove Hg 2+ from water solutions. Materials and Methods: To remove the highest percentage of mercury ions, the Box-Behnken model of response surface methodology (RSM) was applied to simultaneously optimize all parameters affecting the adsorption process. Studied parameters of the process were pH (5-8), initial metal concentration (2-8 mg/L), and the amount of damped adsorbent (0.25-0.75 g). A second-order mathematical model was developed using regression analysis of experimental data obtained from 15 batch runs. Results: The optimal conditions predicted by the model were pH = 5, initial concentration of mercury ions = 6.2 mg/L, and the amount of damped adsorbent = 0.67 g. Confirmatory testing was performed and the maximum percentage of Hg 2+ removed was found to be 99.91%. Kinetic studies of the adsorption process specified the efficiency of the pseudo second-order kinetic model. The adsorption isotherm was well-fitted to both the Langmuir and Freundlich models. Conclusions: CCMN as an excellent adsorbent could remove the mercury ions from water solutions at low and moderate concentrations, which is the usual amount found in environment.

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