Study on determination of seven transition metal ions in water and food by microcolumn high-performance liquid chromatography

Abstract

A new method for the simultaneous determination of seven transition metal ions in water and food by microcolumn high-performance liquid chromatography has been developed. The lead, cadmium, mercury, nickel, cobalt, silver and tin ions were pre-column derivatized with tetra-(4-aminophenyl)-porphyrin (T 4-APP) to form the colored chelates which were then enriched by solid phase extraction with C18 cartridge. The enrichment factor of 50 was achieved by eluted the retained chelates from the cartridge with tetrahydrofuran (THF). The chelates were separated on a ZORBAX Stable Bound microcolumn (2.0 × 50 mm, 1.8 μm) with methanol-tetrahydrofuran (95:5, v/v, containing 0.05 mol/L pyrrolidine-acetic acid buffer salt, pH = 10.0) as mobile phase at a flow rate of 0.5 mL/min and detected with a photodiode array detector from 350-600 nm. The seven chelates were separated completely within 2.0 min. The detection limits of lead, cadmium, mercury, nickel, cobalt, silver and tin are 4 ng/L, 3 ng/L, 6 ng/L, 5 ng/L, 5 ng/L, 6 ng/L, 4 ng/L respectively in the original samples. This method was applied to the determination of the seven transition metal in water and food samples with good results.