Determination of ultratrace cadmium in food and environmental samples by ETAAS after vapor generation and in situ preconcentration

A method is described for the determination of ultratrace cadmium by coupling a continuous flow vapor generation system with in situ preconcentration technique and electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry (ETAAS). A graphite tube coated with Ir as permanent chemical modifier was used for trapping cadmium vapor species. The effects of the flow rates of carrier gas and sample injection in vapor generation systems on the trapping measurement for cadmium were respectively investigated. Graphite tubes with different characteristic surfaces were comparatively studied for trapping cadmium vapor. The experimental results showed that the permanent chemical modifier of Ir is an alternative to the thermolabile modifier of Pd for simplifying the trapping measurement. The trapping efficiency of cadmium on the graphite tube coated with Ir was estimated. The trapping temperature and time were also investigated. A detection limit (3σ) of 0.005 μg·L⁻¹ was obtained for this proposed method. The relative standard deviation (RSD) was 1.4% for 0.5 μ·L⁻¹ of Cd (n = 11). This method can be applied to the determination of ultratrace cadmium in food and environmental samples with good agreement between the certified and found values.