Determination of 10 Elements in Sewage Irrigated Cabbage by Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry

Objective To develop a method for simultaneous determination of Cr, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Se, Mo, Cd, Hg, and Pb in sewage irrigated cabbage by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) with an octopole reaction system (ORS).

Methods Ten elements in after-microwave-digested sewage irrigated cabbage samples were directly determined by ICP-MS after using internal standard solution for elimination of non-spectroscopic interference and ORS for elimination of mass spectroscopic in terference.

Results The correlation coefficients were >0.999 5 for all elements detected, the detection limits of method were < 1.96 μg/L, the relative recoveries were 80.5%-119.8%, and the standard deviations were 0.93%-9.84% (n=10). The contents of Cr, Zn, Hg, and Pb in the cabbage samples from A area were higher than those in the control samples (P < 0.05). The contents of Cr, Zn, Hg, and Pb in the cabbage samples from B area were higher than those in the control samples (P < 0.05).

Conclusion This method using ORS and ICP-MS can be applied for simultaneous determination of ten elements in sewage irrigated cabbage, which is simple, sensitive, and accurate.