Hollow-fiber liquid-liquid-solid micro-extraction of lead in soft drinks and determination by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry

A novel hollow-fiber liquid-liquid-solid micro-extraction technique based on simultaneous liquid-liquid micro-extraction and solid phase micro-extraction using a polypropylene microporous membrane has been developed. The applicability of the proposed procedure was evaluated by extraction of Pb(II) from aqueous solutions and soft drinks. The parameters affecting the extraction efficiency were optimized using multivariate methodology, and the analytical features were established. Under optimized conditions, Pb(II) was concentrated for 20 min on three microporous membrane hollow fibers of 6 mm of length each, placed into 20 mL of sample containing 60 μL of toluene and ammonium O,O-diethyl dithiophosphate. The fibers were introduced directly into the graphite furnace as a solid sample, and the analyte was thermally desorbed from the fiber and atomized using ruthenium as a permanent modifier. A detection limit of 7 ng L⁻¹ Pb was obtained for soft drink samples and good repeatability was found for all samples. The enrichment factor varied between 22 and 66, depending if only one or all three hollow fibers were used for the determination of lead. The results suggest that the proposed procedure represents a simple and low-cost micro-extraction alternative rendering adequate limits of quantification for the determination of Pb(II) in soft drink samples.