Determination of zinc in dried nuts by slotted quartz tube-flame atomic absorption spectrometry (SQT-FAAS) with citric acid-coated magnetic nanoparticle (CAMNP) based solid phase extraction (SPE)

Abstract

This study reports a sensitive method for trace zinc using slotted quartz tube-flame atomic absorption spectrometry (SQT-FAAS) with citric acid-coated magnetic nanoparticle-solid phase extraction (CAMNP-SPE). To increase the efficiency, we univariately optimized the pH, buffer volume, CAMNP mass, eluent concentration and volume, mixing type and time, temperature, and interaction time. The study identified the limits of detection and quantification values for CAMNP-SPE-SQT-FAAS under the specified optimum conditions to be 12.30 and 41.00 μg L−1, respectively. The newly developed method improved the detection power of traditional FAAS by 13.25 times. The findings of this study report a sensitive and accurate method to determine trace zinc in complex matrices.