LAUSR

BACKGROUND Calcium and iron are crucial essential minerals. Iron is mainly responsible for transporting oxygen in the body and the immune system. In comparison, calcium's primary function is in human bones and teeth. Due to that, it is vital to quantify the amount of vegetables. OBJECTIVE Optimization and validation of three analytical procedures visible, AES and AAS, were developed to determine calcium and iron in vegetables and wastewater samples using RSM via BBD. The design helps to reduce experiment trials with selected variables to find a correlation between them and their respective dependent variables. METHODS Method I was developed to quantify calcium in vegetables mixed with concentrated 3M HNO3 and heated the mixture to reflux as per the BBD. Then, cooled, filtered, and completed with 3M HNO3 to be carried out utilizing AES and AAS. For method II, vegetables were mixed with nitric acid and sulfuric acid solution with an optimized 5M KSCN solution, which was computed using the AAS and visible spectrophotometry. RESULTS First, % water content was calculated for all vegetables, higher in malabar spinach and lower in peas. The Ca and Fe contents were present within 0.59-2.68 mg and 35.8-211.5 mg, respectively in 100g of vegetables. The results showed a higher amount of iron was available in spinach and a lower amount in okra. In contrast, the highest calcium amount was present in broccoli and the lowest amount was in peas. The Ca and Fe content were between 0.015-137.25 and 0.01-147.85 µg/mL in the wastewater samples. CONCLUSION These methods can help to determine the amount of calcium and iron for the quality control samples in research & development, food and the environmental industry. HIGHLIGHTS Three validated analytical techniques quantify calcium and iron in vegetables and wastewater samples. The RSM-BBD optimized the method and determined its crucial factors.