Determination of nitrate in vegetables by continuous flow: interlaboratory study

A collaborative study for the determination of nitrate in leafy vegetables, such as endive, lettuce, spinach, and beetroot, by continuous flow (CF) was conducted by the Project Group on Collaborative Studies of the Inspectorate for Health Protection, Food Inspection Service, in The Netherlands. After extraction with water and filtration, samples were cleaned up by dialysis in the CF system. Extracted nitrates were reduced to nitrite in the system by metallic cadmium, and then the nitrite was reacted with sulfanilamide and N-1-naphthylethylenediamine to form a reddish-purple azo dye. This dye was measured colorimetrically at 530 nm. Fourteen vegetable samples (including 7 blind duplicates) containing nitrate at ca 900 to 5200 mg/kg were analyzed singly by the proposed procedure by 13 laboratories. The data were analyzed by the International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC)-International Organization for Standardization (ISO)-AOAC protocol for statistics. One collaborator was identified as an outlier for all results. For all samples analyzed, the repeatability relative standard deviation values varied from 1.7 to 5.5%, whereas the reproducibility relative standard deviation values ranged from 3.3 to 5.9%.