Advances in Fluoride Determination of Tea

As an essential element that mainly comes from diet intake, fluoride plays a pivotal role in human health. Adequate amount of it is required to maintain healthy bones and prevent dental decay. But in excess, fluoride can be harmful, and thus, considered a potential pollutant in food materials. Being a well-accepted healthy beverage, tea could, hence, become a concern due to the fluorine accumulated in leaves from the environment as a plant ages and matures. Therefore, the dark tea varieties, which are commonly made from older leaves, tend to contain more of fluoride(and could pose a risk of fluorosis for longterm consumption. Consequently, it is imperative that a rapid and accurate means to determine the fluorine in tea products be employed for routine quality monitoring. In recent years, in addition to the conventionally applied fluorine ion-selective electrode for the detection, several analytical methods including voltammetry, spectroscopy, and chromatography have become available. This article summarizes the current advances on the related technologies for reader’s reference.