Abstract
Closed microwave digestion and a high-pressure asher have been evaluated for wet-oxidation and extraction of lead, cadmium, chromium, and mercury from a range of typical packaging materials used for food products. For the high-pressure asher a combination of nitric and sulfuric acids was efficient for destruction of a range of packaging materials; for polystyrene, however, nitric acid alone was more efficient. For microwave digestion, a reagent containing nitric acid, sulfuric acid, and hydrogen peroxide was used for all materials except polystyrene. Use of the high-pressure asher resulted in the highest recoveries of spiked lead (median 92%), cadmium (median 92%), chromium (median 97%), and mercury (median 83%). All samples were spiked before digestion with 40 μg L–1 Cd, Cr, and Pb and 8 μg L–1 Hg in solution. The use of indium as internal standard improved the accuracy of results from both ICP–MS and ICP–AES. Average recovery of the four elements from spiked packaging materials was 92 ± 14% by ICP–MS and 87 ± 15% (except for mercury) by ICP– AES. For mercury analysis by CVAAS, use of tin(II) chloride as reducing agent resulted in considerably better accuracy than use of sodium borohydride reagent.
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Received: 16 November 2000 / Revised: 27 December 2000 / Accepted: 3 January 2001
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Perring, L., Alonso, MI., Andrey, D. et al. An evaluation of analytical techniques for determination of lead, cadmium, chromium, and mercury in food-packaging materials. Fresenius J Anal Chem 370, 76–81 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/s002160100716
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s002160100716