Investigation of a rapid infrared heating assisted mineralization of soybean matrices for trace element analysis.

A fast sample preparation procedure based on use of infrared (IR) assisted heating for mineralization of soybean derived samples has been developed for their subsequent multielement analysis by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) and flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS). A cold finger was examined for refluxing of acid vapors to determine its impact on efficiency and economy of digestion. The optimized procedure, based on 1 g subsamples, 8 mL of HNO3 (65% w/w) and exposure of the mixture to a 500 W IR source for 5 min without refluxing, permitted accurate determination of all analytes in NIST SRM 1568b (rice flour). Detection limits using ICP-OES were (µg/kg) 97, 1.0, 39, 185, 0.47 and 1200 for Ca, Cu, Fe, K, Mn and P, respectively, and 18 for Zn by FAAS. The IR-assisted digestion approach provided a low cost, easy to use system having great potential for implementation in routine analysis of trace elements in soybean and similar matrices.

A new approach to mineralization of flaxseed (Linum usitatissimum L.) for trace element analysis by flame atomic absorption spectrometry.

A new approach to the analysis of Cu, Fe, Mn and Zn in flaxseed was developed based on infrared-assisted acid digestion. Quantitation by flame atomic absorption spectrometry yields results in agreement with those arising from aggressive total decomposition using conventional microwave-assisted (MW) digestions. A full factorial design in two levels was applied to evaluate the impact of significant variables for all elements to determine optimal experimental conditions. A desirability function revealed these to be: 2.0g sample mass, 8mL of HNO3 and 8min of heating time in the IR system. Precision better than 10% (RSD) was obtained, superior to that of a combined IR-MW approach. Sample preparation based on IR-assisted digestion provides a rapid and inexpensive alternative to other conventional techniques for the analysis of complex samples and is able to accommodate relatively large masses of sample, alleviating potential homogeneity issues as well as enhancing detection power.