Health impact assessment by ingestion of polluted soil/sediment

Potentially toxic elements (PTEs) pose a threat to human health as they can easily enter the human body via ingestion of polluted soil/sediment. In order to estimate the bioavailability and assess the health impact on people, measurement of the
oral bioaccessibility of a pollutant is crucial. Various laboratory based in vitro tests which mimic human gastrointestinal tract conditions can be used. In order to set up the method for analysing the bioaccessibility of pollutants in soil samples in the
Laboratory for the analysis of geological materials at the Department of Mineralogy, Petrology and Mineral resources (Faculty of Mining, Geology and Petroleum Engineering, University of Zagreb - RGNF), with regards to the available equipment, an orientation survey was carried out in collaboration with the Department of Biochemical Engineering (Faculty of Food Technology and Biotechnology, University of Zagreb - PBF). The digestion of two different samples in synthetic fluids (gastric
and intestinal fluid) was performed simultaneously at the RGNF laboratory and PBF laboratory under different extraction conditions according to each laboratory’s ability. Prior to the analysis of bioaccessibility, detailed mineralogical and chemical
characterization of the samples was performed. The comparison of two experiments showed that there is a relatively good correlation between concentrations obtained after digestion of the samples in different laboratories, under different
conditions. As a result of this study, an efficient and relatively inexpensive method for determining bioaccessibility was set up at Faculty of Mining, Geology and Petroleum Engineering, which makes this kind of test more accessible and enables a
new approach in risk assessment studies.