A Nafion-coated bismuth film electrode for the determination of heavy metals in vegetable using differential pulse anodic stripping voltammetry: An alternative to mercury-based electrodes

Mercury electrodes have been traditionally employed for achieving high reproducibility and sensitivity of the stripping technique. However, new alternative electrode materials are highly desired because of the toxicity of mercury. Bismuth is an electrode material characterized by its low toxicity and its ability to form alloys with some metals such as cadmium, lead and zinc, allowing their preconcentration at the electrode surface. In this work, we reported the simultaneous determination of Pb(II), Cd(II) and Zn(II) at the low μg/l concentration levels by differential pulse anodic stripping voltammetry (DPASV) on a Nafion-coated bismuth film electrode (NCBFE) plated in situ, and investigated the application of NCBFE to heavy metals analysis in vegetable samples. The analytical performance of NCBFE was evaluated for simultaneous determination of Pb(II), Cd(II) and Zn(II) in non-deaerated solution, with the limits of determination of 0.30 μg/l for Zn, 0.17 μg/l for Cd and Pb at a preconcentration time of 180 s. High reproducibility for NCBFE was indicated from the relative standard deviations of 2.4% for Pb, 2.0% for Cd and 3.4% for Zn at the 15 μg/l level (n = 15). The NCBFE was successfully applied to determine Pb and Cd in vegetable samples, and the results were in agreement with those of graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry (GFAAS).