Determination of heavy metals in animal tissues

During studies on the accumulation of heavy metals in animal organs and tissues, only small samples (0.5-2 g) rich in lipids and having low concentrations of metals are often available. This may lead to loss of metals in the various steps of the analytical procedure. A modified procedure of mineralization for the determination of Pb, Cd and Zn is described, as well as suitable analytical procedures used by the Authors for the determination by atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Results showed that the loss of metals is minimized with these procedures.