Determination of free and total copper and lead in wine by stripping potentiometry

Stripping potentiometry has been employed for the measurement of the labile and total copper concentrations in white wine. Conditions have been optimised for a supporting electrolyte consisting of 1.0 mol/L hydrochloric acid and 0.5 mol/L calcium chloride. Mercury(II) was found to be a more suitable oxidant than O₂ and, for the determination of the labile concentrations, this required the use of medium exchange. With lead, O₂ proved to be an efficient oxidant for the stripping step and this allowed the direct measurement in the wine without the need for medium exchange. It was observed that red wine rapidly binds added lead, demonstrating that wine has a high complexation capacity for lead. A similar complexation effect was also observed for white wine, but the degree of lead complexation was less than that for red wine. The impact of this lead complexation effect for the use of standard additions is discussed.