Automatic flow procedure based on multicommutation exploiting liquid–liquid extraction for spectrophotometric lead determination in plant material

A not expensive automatic flow system based on multicommutation and exploiting the liquid–liquid extraction methodology for the determination of lead in plant material is described. The spectrophotometric procedure for lead determination was based on the reaction with dithizone followed by extraction using an organic solvent. The facilities afforded by the multicommutation approach allowed the use of an air stream as carrier, thus contributing to reduce the overall waste generation. The results obtained analysing plant materials compare very well with those obtained employing inductive coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP OES) at 90% confidence level. Others profitable features such as a linear response range between 50 and 200 μg l−1 Pb (r = 0.999); a sampling rate of 15 determination per hour; a relative standard deviation of 1.8% (n = 12) for a typical sample containing 163 μg l−1 Pb; a detection limit of 12 μg l−1; a reagent consumption of 4.5 mg dithizone; and a waste generation of 225 μl organic solvent per determination were also achieved.