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Updated: Dec 24, 2025

Determination of Inorganic Arsenic in a Wide Range of Food Matrices using Hydride Generation - Atomic Absorption Spectrometry.
Published on: September 1, 2017
Evaluation of sample preparation methods for cereal digestion for subsequent As, Cd, Hg and Pb determination by
Juliana P Souza1, Camila Cerveira1, Tatiane M Miceli1
1Instituto de Química, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, 91501-970, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.
Abstract:
Sample preparation methodsforcereal digestion were evaluated for the first time for subsequent As, Cd, Hg, and Pb determination by atomic absorption spectroscopy techniques. Microwave-assisted digestion (MW-AD) under high and medium pressure and microwave-induced combustion (MIC) were evaluated. The use of MIC made it possible to digest 700 mg of samples, and agreements of 97, 96, 100 and 92% were obtained for As, Cd, Hg and Pb, respectively, when 7 mol L-1 HNO3 was used as the absorbing solution. It was not necessary to dilute the digests obtained to avoid interferences in the quantification of As, Cd, Hg, and Pb. Although high pressure MW-AD was efficient for cereal digestion, interferences were observed on analyte determination. Limits of quantification obtained by MIC were 0.034 (As), 0.015 (Cd), 0.021 (Hg) and 0.105 (Pb) μg g-1, which are suitable to attain the maximum levels recommended by international agencies in cereal samples.
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