Solid-phase extraction procedures are commonly employed in many fields of analytical science for the separation or enrichment of chemical species in different kinds of samples. 1 Some advantages of solid-phase extraction over liquid-liquid extraction include easy automation, easy regeneration of the sorbent, a high preconcentration factor and the absence of large amounts of hazardous solvents. 2 In the field of atomic spectrometry, solid-phase extraction is often used for tracemetal enrichment using flow-injection analysis, due to the ease of coupling to spectroanalytical techniques, such as FAAS, ICP OES and GFAAS. [3][4][5] Moreover, flow solid-phase preconcentration systems also allows an increase in the sample throughput and reduce sample/reagent consumption. During the optimization of a flow-solid phase preconcentration procedure there are some experimental variables related to both the flow and the chemical conditions that may affect the performance of the system. Commonly, when a study considering the variables is carried out by the traditional univariate method, the procedure is quite time consuming and not very economical; often, the best conditions are difficult to attain. On the other hand, multivariate optimization provides a reduced number of experiments and allows an understanding of the influence of several variables as well as their interaction effects. 6 Thus, when a new analytical method is proposed and its optimization process is carried out by multivariate design, the first step in trying to obtain significant variables is accomplished by experimental screening, such as a full factorial, fractional factorial or when many variables are involved in the optimization, a Plackett-Burman type optimization is used. 7 After establishing the significant variables, more complex designs, including central composite, Doehlert design, face centered cube and others are commonly indicated. 8 In this way, recent work has shown the remarkable advantage of experimental designs based on multivariate optimization for obtaining the optimum conditions in preconcentration systems coupled to atomic spectrometry techniques, such as GFAAS, ICP OES and FAAS. 5,9,10 Due to simplicity, low cost and low power detection when compared to GFAAS and ICP OES, FAAS has been the technique most often employed for this purpose. 11,12 Indeed, preconcentration systems coupled to FAAS are powerful approaches for trace-metal enrichment. Recently, a new approach to the atomic-spectrometry technique, namely thermospray flame furnace atomic absorption spectrometry (TS-FF-AAS), 13 has shown itself to be an outstanding analytical technique for coupling to a flowpreconcentration system, thus making it possible to obtain simple, cost effective and sensitive methods for the determinations of metals at the µg/dm 3 levels. Because it is a very recent technique, the application of TS-FF-AAS for metal determination in real samples has been reported in only a few The present paper describes the on-line coupling of a flow-injection system to a new ...