On-line system for preconcentration and determination of metals in vegetables by Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry

A procedure has been developed for the simultaneous determination of trace amounts of cadmium, copper, chromium, nickel and lead in digested vegetable samples. The method involves solid-phase extraction of the metals using a minicolumn of Amberlite XAD-4 modified with dihydroxybenzoic acid (DHB) and detection by Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES). The elution of the metals from minicolumn was performed with 1.0 mol L-1 hydrochloric acid. Variables associated with flow preconcentration system performance, such as pH, buffer concentration, eluent concentration and sampling flow rate, were optimized. The developed procedure provides enrichment factors of 100, 72, 16, 91 and 53, for cadmium, copper, chromium, nickel and lead, respectively. Detection limits (3σB) were 0.02 (Cd), 0.23 (Cu), 0.58 (Cr), 0.060 (Ni) and 0.54 (Pb) μg L-1. The procedure was applied for determination of metals in samples of guarana and cabbage. The accuracy of the method was checked by the analysis of a certified reference material (NIST 1571, Orchard leaves). Results found were in agreement with certified values