Determination of lead in environmental water by a backward light scattering technique

An optical fiber assembly developed in our laboratory, which is based on detecting backward light scattering (BLS) signals, is now applied to detect the lead content in environmental samples. Due to effectively eliminating the interference of reflected light, this BLS signals based detection assembly can be used to determine analyte directly. In HAc–NaAc buffer medium (pH 4.8), the interaction of lead and sodium tetraphenylboron (TPB) in the presence of polyethylene glycol (PEG) yields large particles of ternary complex, resulting in strong enhanced backward light scattering (BLS) signals characterized at 371 nm. By measuring the BLS signals with the homemade optical fiber assembly coupled with a common spectrofluorometer, we found that the enhanced BLS intensity is proportional to lead content over the range of 0.03–1.0 μg ml−1 with the limit of determination (LOD) of 2.6 ng ml−1. Three artificial water samples containing various coexistent substances were detected with the recovery of 90.1–107.5%. Standard addition method was used to detect the lead content in drink tap water, and found that the lead is hardly to detect due to too low content. Prior enrichment should be made in order to detect river water samples, and it was found that the content of lead in Jialing River at Bebei Dock is about 14 ng ml−1, identical to the results using inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES).