## 4 Conclusions  
In this work, an ICP-OES method was employed for the determination of toxic and nutrient metals in spices after pressure assisted digestion. The proposed method exhibited good performance characteristics in terms of linearity, trueness, precision, while it exhibited satisfactory LOD and LOQ values for the examined analytes. The concentration of Ca ranged between 931 mg kg\({}^{-1}\) and 10,921 mg kg\({}^{-1}\), while the concentration of Mg ranged between 468 mg kg\({}^{-1}\) and 3847 mg kg\({}^{-1}\). Ag, Bi, Cd, Co, Pb and Tl were not detected in the samples. Al, B, Ba, B, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni and Zn were also determined among the examined samples and their concentration levels were: 34.1-566.0 mg kg\({}^{-1}\) for Al, up to 40.0 mg kg\({}^{-1}\) for B, 4.38-100.7 mg kg\({}^{-1}\) for Ba, up to 4.93 mg kg\({}^{-1}\) for Cr, up to 19.9 mg kg\({}^{-1}\) for Cu,  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Element** & **This work** & **[7]** & **[16]** & **[17]** & **[18]** & **[19]** & **[20]** & **[21]** & **[12]** \\ \hline Ag & \(<\)LOD \({}^{2}\) & - & - & - & - & - & - & - & - \\ Al & 34.1–566.0 & - & 40-700 & - & - & - & - & - & - \\ B & 4.30–L0.0 & - & - & 3.65–31.7 & - & - & - & - & - \\ Ba & 4.38–100.7 & 2.02–39.22 & - & 0.63–77.34 & - & - & - & - & - \\ Bi & \(<\)LOD & - & - & \(0.46\times 10^{-3}\),\(\pm\)14.96 & - & - & - & - & - \\ Ca & 931–10.921 & 2510–960 & 6560–13.700 & - & - & - & 2282–15.579 & 4300–24.500 & 11,032 \\ Cd & \(<\)LOD & \(<\)LOD-8.0 \(\times 10^{-3}\) & - & \(3.56\times 10^{-3}\),\(\pm\) 10\({}^{-3}\),\(\pm\) 315 & 0.10–0.93 & - & \(\leq\)0.0966 & 0.066 \\ Co & \(<\)LOD & 0.006–0.522 & \(<\)LOD-4.12 & \(\times\) 10\({}^{-3}\) & - & - & - & - & - \\ Cr & \(<\)LOD-493 & 0.44–17.9 & \(<\)LOD-3.99 & 0.38–33.3 & - & 0.67–7.15 & - & - & - \\ Cu & \(<\)LOD-19.9 & 2.78–11.70 & 2.5–19.03 & 2.35–77.68 & - & 4.1–287 & - & \(<\)100 & 8.55 \\ Fe & 31.2–736.3 & 53–409 & 70–950 & - & - & 88.9–376.3 & 46.12–1002 & \(\leq\)592 & 587 \\ Mg & 468–3847 & 400–2590 & 1790–4250 & - & - & 492.2–3870 & 640–7160 & - \\ Mn & 6.51–501.0 & 14.2–164.7 & 2.17–79.73 & 18.9–97.8 & - & 11.9–211.3 & - & \(<\)307 & - \\ Ni & \(<\)LOD-14.7 & 0.32–6.50 & \(<\)LOD-7.71 & 0.94–319 & 0.65–86.69 & - & \(\geq\)0.165 & 0.486 \\ Pb & \(<\)LOD & - & \(<\)LOD-58.0 & \(12.13\times 10^{-3}\),\(\pm\) 3451.1 & 3.99 – & 0.47–189 & - & 0.0631–2.053 & 0.282 \\ Tl & \(<\)LOD & - & - & \(0.387\times 10^{-3}\) & \(\times\) 10\({}^{-3}\) & - & - & - & - \\ Zn & 5.3–63.8 & 16.5–45.7 & 6.35–77.5 & 12.64–84.95 & - & 7.84–47.6 & - & \(\leq\)100 & \\ \hline \end{tabular} \({}^{1}\) Mean values. \({}^{2}\) LOD: Limit of detection.  
\end{table}
Table 4: Comparison of the elemental composition of spices found in this study with reported composition of other studies.  
Figure 1: Average metal content for (**a**) Ca and Mg, (**b**) Al, Fe and Mn, (**c**) B, Ba and Zn and (**d**) Cu, Cr and Ni in the spice samples.  
31.2-736.3 mg kg\({}^{-1}\) for Fe, 6.51-501.0 mg kg\({}^{-1}\) for Mn, up to 14.7 mg kg\({}^{-1}\) for Ni and 5.3-63.8 mg kg\({}^{-1}\) for Zn.  
Conceptualization, N.M. and G.A.Z.; methodology, N.M., E.I. and G.A.Z.; validation, N.M. and E.I.; investigation, N.M., E.I. and G.A.Z.; resources, G.A.Z.; writing--original draft preparation, N.M. and E.I.; writing--review and editing, N.M. and G.A.Z.; supervision, G.A.Z. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.  
This research received no external funding.  
Not applicable.  
The authors declare no conflict of interest.