Focused ultrasound versus microwave digestion for the determination of lead in must by electrothermal-atomic absorption spectrometry

Abstract

The content of metals at the different stages of the winemaking process is of great concern because of legal and wine quality reasons. In the present work, we have developed a new fast procedure for metal extraction from must based on focused ultrasound with HNO3 and H2O2, with which microwave digestion of the must is not necessary. Lead was used as a model element to achieve the optimum combination of reagents in order to achieve total extraction. Results were compared with those obtained after microwave digestion of the samples. In addition, conventional and fast programs in conjunction with different matrix modifiers were studied. The method requires few sample mass (ca 0.5 g) and few reagents in low volume (HNO3 50 μL and H2O2 100 μL). The total sample treatment time is only 60 s.