Simultaneous coprecipitation of lead, cobalt, copper, cadmium, iron and nickel in food samples with zirconium(IV) hydroxide prior to their flame atomic absorption spectrometric determination

A simple and new coprecipitation procedure is developed for the determination of trace quantities of heavy metals (lead, cobalt, copper, cadmium, iron and nickel) in natural water and food samples. Analyte ions were coprecipitated by using zirconium(IV) hydroxide. The determination of metal levels was performed by flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS). The influences of analytical parameters including pH, amount of zirconium(IV), sample volume, etc. were investigated on the recoveries of analyte ions. The effects of possible matrix ions were also examined. The recoveries of the analyte ions were in the range of 95–100%. Preconcentration factor was calculated as 25. The detection limits for the analyte ions based on 3 sigma (n = 21) were in the range of 0.27–2.50 μg L−1. Relative standard deviation was found to be lower than 8%. The validation of the presented coprecipitation procedure was performed by the analysis certified reference materials (GBW 07605 Tea and LGC 6010 Hard drinking water). The procedure was successfully applied to natural waters and food samples like coffee, fish, tobacco, black and green tea.