Determination of Mineral Elements in Maize Cultivars by Microwave Digestion/ICP-AES and Principal Component Analysis

【Objective】 To analyze the mineral elements of different maize cultivars in the hope of providing theoretical basis for improving the nutrition quality and processing quality of maize cultivars of Xinjiang. 【Method】 In this study, 23 samples of maize cultivars in Xinjiang were collected, and the contents of five elements including calcium, iron, zinc, magnesium and phosphorus were analyzed by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectrometry (ICP-AES) method, and the principal component analysis and correlation analysis were conducted with SPSS software. 【Result】 The results showed that the content of calcium, iron, zinc, magnesium and phosphorus were 8.22-17.15 mg/100g, 0.36-1.29 mg/100g, 0.84-1.95 mg/100g, 92.65-138.26 mg/100g and 158.91-282.71 mg/100g, respectively. 【Conclusion】 Comprehensive analysis results indicated that the quality of 23 maize cultivars was different: the order from high to low, Denghai 8883>Xinyu 54> Xinyu 9>2564> Xinyu 47> Xinyu 80> Xinyu 87> Xinyu 84 > Xinyu 41 >3376>Nongrun 919> KX9384>Heyu 187> Xinyu 60> M753> Xinyu 74 > Xinyu 59> Xinyu 29>9384>335> Xinyu 77> Xinyu 13> Xinyu 65.