A new type of biological reference material for multi-element analysis—the fungus Penicillium ochro-chloron ATCC 36741

Abstract

Several series of standard disk samples were prepared using dried mycelia of Penicillium ochro-chloron, a fungus extremely tolerant to heavy metals. Because of the ready availability of the homogeneous dry material with arbitrary metal concentrations, the fungus is very suitable for calibration in metal analysis by X-ray fluorescence spectrometry, especially for biological samples.

Based on the calibration graph for the reference material, the metal contents of edible wild plants were determined. The reliability of the data was checked by using biological reference materials and by atomic-absorption spectrometry.