MODELLING AND OPTIMIZATION OF THE INFLUENCE OF SOME TRACE ELEMENTS AND MINERAL COMPOSITION IN SOIL AND DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE ARGAN TREES

Argan oil is traditionally used for skin, nail and hair care, cooking, massaging and healing. Its chemical composition highlights interest of many laboratories to use it in their best-selling products. Recently, various studies were realized to characterise specific antioxidants and polyunsaturated fatty acids in Argan oil. Nevertheless, there is a lack of information concerning the trace elements content. This work deals with the presence of trace elements and some minerals in soil collected from an Argan field in Essaouira and the distribution of Cd, Cr, Cu, Pb and Zn in different parts of Argan trees. A methodology based on inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES) has been developed to determine the content of microelement concentrations. Samples of soil, wood, leaves, almonds and oils were taken for the determination of metals and micronutrients. Only adult trees were considered. Most of the trees studied were characterized by a high lead and calcium content. The multidimensional analysis of data, performed on all analytical results obtained, showed significant relationships between different heavy metals and micronutrients considering all groups as a whole. The regression coefficients obtained on variables determined in wood, leaves, almonds and oil are relatively higher. On the contrary, the soil group is poorly related to the other four groups. Significant differences are mainly due to the partial-spatial variations in these contents. The nature of soils explained most of the elements’ distribution pattern in Argan tree.