1 2 Original Research Article 3 Direct atomic absorption spectrometry determination of arsenic, 4 cadmium, copper, manganese, lead and zinc in vegetable oil and 5 fat samples with graphite filter furnace atomizer 6 A. Zacharia Q1 a , A. Zhuravlev a, *, S. Gucer b , A. Chebotarev a , M. Arabadji a , A. Dobrynin a 7 a I.I. Mechnikov Odessa National University, Department of Analytical Chemistry, str. Dvoryanskaya 2, 65026 Odessa, Ukraine 8 b Uludag University Art and Science Faculty, Department of Chemistry, 16059 Bursa, Turkey 9 10 1. Introduction 11 The content of metals in vegetable oils and fats is an important 12 criterion of their quality. Mn, As, Pb, Cu, Cd and Zn are the most 13 often determined elements in vegetable oils and fats and their 14 maximum allowable concentrations referring to human health are 15 well documented (Codex, 1995). Atomic absorption spectrometry 16 (AAS) is one of the most effective official techniques for food 17 analysis that was outlined in many standards in order to control 18 health assessment in food trading (EN 14084, 2003; EN 14546, 19 2005; EN ISO 6869, 2000; EN ISO 8294, 1999; EN ISO 12193, 2004; 20 EN ISO 15774, 2001). Oils and fats are specific analytic samples that 21 consist of nearly totally organic substances. This fact may cause 22 spectral interferences, which leads to time-consuming sample 23 mineralization procedures for accuracy improvements (Betz et al., 24 1980; Gu ¨ cer and Massmann, 1983). To eliminate or reduce these 25 interferences, various means and techniques are being offered: the 26 separation of the elements to be determined from interfering 27 components (Anwar et al., 2004; Khan et al., 2007; Price et al., 28 1970), chemical modifiers (CM) (Bozhanov and Karadjova, 2008; 29 Karadjova et al., 1998, 2005; Karadjova and Venelinov, 2002), L’vov 30 platform (Karadjova et al., 1998, 2005; Karadjova and Venelinov, 31 2002; Lacoste et al., 1999), addition of oxygen to the protective gas 32 (Nash et al., 1983), Zeeman-effect background correction (Kar- 33 adjova et al., 1998; Nash et al., 1983; Chen et al., 2003), and the 34 Stabilized Temperature Platform Furnace (STPF) concept (Slavin 35 et al., 1981). 36 According to EN ISO 8294 (1999), EN ISO 12193 (2004), and EN 37 ISO 15774 (2001), such volatile elements as Pb and Cd, must be 38 determined with the presence of chemical modifiers (lecithin – 2% 39 (m/v) for Pb, and PdCl 2 – 0.1% (m/v) for Cd), while for Cu a chemical 40 modifier is not needed in case of the analysis of vegetable oils and 41 fats. 42 A different approach for the electrothermal atomic absorption 43 spectroscopy (ET AAS) determination of some elements in complex Journal of Food Composition and Analysis xxx (2014) xxx–xxx A R T I C L E I N F O Article history: Received 18 June 2013 Received in revised form 1 September 2014 Accepted 2 October 2014 Available online xxx Keywords: Electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry Graphite filter-furnace atomizer Chemical modifier Heavy metals Vegetable fats Oils Food analysis Food safety Food composition A B S T R A C T The article presents the results of optimization of operation parameters, investigation of analytical characteristics and the abilities of a graphite filter-furnace (FF) atomizer for the direct electrothermal atomic absorption spectroscopy (ET AAS) determination of trace amounts of Mn, As, Pb, Cu, Cd and Zn in some vegetable oils and fats. The effect of pyrolysis and atomization temperatures of the graphite FF atomizer on atomic absorbance values of the listed elements at their evaporation from some organic solutions in the presence of a Pd-Mg chemical modifier (CM) was investigated. For the ET AAS determination of As, Pb, Cd and Zn with Pd-Mg CM, the temperature of the graphite FF atomizer for the pyrolysis step can be raised by 250–350 8C. This mode allows to eliminate the background absorption, to increase the sensitivity of the elements to be analyzed and to enhance the total content of vegetable oils or fats in organic solutions up to 0.5 g mL 1 . The obtained limits of quantification for Mn, As, Pb, Cu, Cd and Zn were 0.002, 0.004, 0.004, 0.002, 0.0008, 0.0004 mg kg 1 , respectively. The relative standard deviation (RSD) varied between 3 and 8% and the time of one element determination did not exceed 3–5 min. The reliability of the proposed method was checked using the reference method. A paired Student’s t-test showed no significant difference between the results obtained by both methods on a 95% confidence level. ß 2014 Published by Elsevier Inc. * Corresponding author. Phone: +38 095 289 05 90 Q2 . E-mail addresses: aleksandr_juravl@rambler.ru (A. Zhuravlev), sgucer@uludag.edu.tr (S. Gucer). G Model YJFCA 2467 1–7 Please cite this article in press as: Zacharia, A., et al., Direct atomic absorption spectrometry determination of arsenic, cadmium, copper, manganese, lead and zinc in vegetable oil and fat samples with graphite filter furnace atomizer. J. Food Compos. Anal. (2014), http:// dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jfca.2014.10.002 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Food Composition and Analysis jo u rn al ho m epag e: ww w.els evier .c om /lo cat e/jfc a http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jfca.2014.10.002 0889-1575/ß 2014 Published by Elsevier Inc.