Simultaneous determination of iron and copper in children's sera by FAAS

A new and simple flame atomic-absorption spectrometric (FAAS) method is proposed for simultaneous determination of iron and copper in children's sera. It is based on single-step sample pretreatment (deproteinization with 3 mol L-1 HCl, ratio 1:1) and single-step calibration using 1.5 mol L-1 HCl standard. During method's optimization a short multifactorial design experiment was used. The proposed method assures accuracy, sensitivity and precision comparable to that of the reference methods. The new approach is simple and time-, labour- and serum-saving, the latter being especially important in pediatric diagnostics.