Determination of vitamin B12 as cobalt by electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry using the solid sampling technique

Abstract

An investigation has been carried out to establish a rapid method for the determination of vitamin B12 as cobalt in solid pharmaceutical samples by electrothermal atomization atomic absorption spectrometry with the solid sampling technique using an inner miniature cup. Calibration graphs of peak area versus mass of the element were constructed by use of a synthetic reference material (SyRM). The SyRM is prepared by coprecipitation of cobalt ions with magnesium(II) 8-quinolinate. In order to determine the accuracy of the proposed method, three pharmaceutical preparations were analyzed according to the proposed method using standardization against the SyRM and the results obtained compared with those when solutions of the same samples were analyzed by other techniques. There is good agreement between the results obtained from the proposed and the other method. The detection limit for cobalt in a solid pharmaceutical preparation is 0.15 ng/mg (i.e. 4 ng/mg of vitamin B12) for a typical sample mass of 1.0 mg.