Md. Abdul Wadud Sarker, Md. Aftabuzzaman and Rupaly Akhter
Abstract
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Arsenic is a common, naturally-occurring element. The metalloid substance, famous for its tasteless, odorless and occasionally lethal properties, sits at number 33 in the periodic table. Arsenic is found in both organic and inorganic. It is significantly threatening in case of Bangladesh as 61 out of 64 districts are affected by arsenic. Arsenic is spreading in various ways in the environment and creating various hazards. The serious arsenic contamination of groundwater in Bangladesh has come out recently as the biggest natural calamity in the world in terms of number of affected population. Rice polish and rice husk samples of two commonly used animal feeds were collected from arsenic contaminated areas of Faridpur district. After collection, the samples were prepared by a series of steps such as, washing, drying and digestion; finally arsenic was determined by atomic absorption spectophotometric method. For this purpose the FI-HG-AAS (Flow Injection Hidride Generator Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer) method was used. The arsenic absorbed by the animal feed (grass and water hyacinth) samples was determined. The mean arsenic concentration in rice polish and rice husk were 0.805±0.111 ppm (n=10) and 0.457±0.034 ppm (n=20), respectively. In this study it was found that the level of arsenic both in rice polish and rice husk is greater than that of the maximum permissible level in drinking water (0.05 ppm, WHO). This study was performed to detect the level of arsenic in animal feed of arsenic contaminated area of Faridpur district.