Determination of trace copper in food samples by flame atomic absorption spectrometry after solid phase extraction on modified soybean hull

Soybean hull was chemically modified with citric acid and used as a solid phase extraction adsorbent for the determination of trace amounts of Cu2+ in food samples by flame absorption spectrometry (FAAS). The effect of pH, sample flow rate and volume, elution flow rate and volume and co-existing ions on the recovery of the analyte were investigated. The results showed that Cu2+ could be adsorbed on the modified soybean hull at pH 8.0 and eluted by 2.0 mL of 1.0 mol L−1 HCl. Under the optimized conditions, the adsorption capacity of modified soybean hull was found to be 18.0 mg g−1 for Cu2+. The detection limit of the proposed method was 0.8 ng mL−1 for Cu2+ with an enrichment factor of 18. The analytical result for the certified reference tea sample (GBW07605) was in a good agreement with the certified value. The proposed method has also been successfully applied to the determination of trace Cu2+ in dried sweet potato, lake water and milk powder, the recovery of Cu2+ for spiked samples was between 91% and 109.6%.