Determination of Lead Contamination in Spanish Wines and Other Alcoholic Beverages by Flow Injection Atomic Absorption Spectrometry

Abstract

A rapid, accurate, and precise method is described for the direct determination of lead in wine and other alcoholic beverages, using a flow injection−hydride generation−atomic absorption spectrometry system (FI-HG-AAS). Lead hydride was generated in HNO3−H2O2 medium using NaBH4 as the reducing agent. To increase the efficiency of lead hydride generation and to produce mineralized samples, a microwave oven was coupled on-line to the FI-HG-AAS system for some samples. This method was used with 70 samples of wine produced in Spain and with 64 samples of other alcoholic beverages widely consumed in that country. The concentrations of lead ranged in wine from not detectable (ND) to 1125.00 μg/L and in other alcoholic beverages from ND to 444.70 μg/L. Keywords: Lead contamination; wine; alcoholic beverages; atomic absorption spectrometry