Determination of boron in Turkish wines by microwave plasma atomic emission spectrometry

•Boron in wine was determined by microwave plasma-atomic emission spectrometry.•MP-AES uses only air and nitrogen to provide plasma.•Drawbacks and advantages of the method were discussed.•Due to the matrix effect on the results, standard addition is necessary.•Boron concentrations of red wines were significantly higher than white wines.

Boron in various Turkish red wine and white wine samples was determined by microwave plasma-atomic emission spectrometry (MP-AES) at 249.677 nm. MP-AES is a novel instrument which provides a low-cost analysis based on a micro-wave plasma generated with nitrogen. Wine samples were not pre-treated prior to analysis. The recovery rate of boron added to the 1:1 diluted wine samples was around 80% which showed interference due to the matrix of the wine samples. Therefore standard addition method was used for quantifications. The limit of detection and limit of quantification were 0.08 and 0.28 μg mL−1, respectively. A satisfactory linearity (r2 > 0.999) was obtained up to 10 mg L−1 of boron. The range of boron concentrations in various wine samples was 4.2-10.8 mg L−1.