Determination of some metal ions in various meat and baby food samples by atomic spectrometry

• As new chelating resin for the separation/preconcentration of some metal ions has been proposed.
• We here report the usefulness of the resin to separate and to concentrate trace elements in environmental and food samples.
• The developed method is simple, fast, inexpensive and also has satisfactory precision and accuracy.

In this paper, we report a simple and rapid solid phase extraction system for the separation/preconcentration and determination of Cd(II), Co(II), Cu(II), Fe(III), Cr(III), Pb(II), and Zn(II) ions by flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS). This method is based upon the retention of metal ions on a column packed with poly[N-(3-methyl-1H-indole-1-yl)]-2-methacrylamide-co-2-acrylamido-2-methyl-1-propane sulphonic acid-co divinylbenzene] (MMAD) resin as a solid-phase extraction (SPE) sorbent at pH 8. At the optimized conditions, the limits of detection (3s/b) between 0.12 and 1.6 μg L−1, preconcentration factor of 100, and the relative standard deviation of ⩽1.8% were achieved (n = 10). The accuracy of the method was verified by analyzing certified reference materials (CRMs) and performing recovery experiments. The developed method was successfully applied to the various natural water, meat products and baby food samples. The recoveries of analyte ions were found in added real samples and CRMs from 95% to 102%.