Determination of arsenic in wheat flour by electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry using a continuous precipitation-dissolution flow system

A precise, accurate automatic preconcentration method for the determination of total arsenic at the ng g−1 level in wheat flour is proposed. The sensitivity of the method can be increased by a factor of 20 by precipitating As(V) from 10 ml of digested sample using a weakly acid silver solution. The Ag3AsO4 precipitate is dissolved with 0.5 ml of 6 M ammonia and the resulting solution is collected in an autosampler cup of the ETAAS instrument. The limit of detection achieved in the determination of total arsenic using Pd(NO3)2 as modifier is 0.3 ng ml−1. The proposed method avoids spectral interferences from cations as they do not precipitate with silver cation; anions, which are coprecipitated with silver, are tolerated at concentrations up to about 10 000 times that of As(V). The need to determine As at very low levels in wheat samples, where chloride and phosphate can occur at concentrations 50 000 and 300 000 times higher, respectively, that of arsenic, requires additional steps to suppress the interference of both anions.