Mild Acid Ultrasonic Assisted Extraction of Arsenic Residues in Different Parts of Hot Chilli Prior to Ultra-Trace Determination by Flow Injection-Hydride Generation Atomic Absorption Spectrometry

Abstract

Mild acid ultrasonic assisted extraction (UAE) of arsenic residues in chilli was introduced a sa green approach due to simple, efficient and rapid method in association with flow injectionhydride generation atomic absorption spectrometry (FI-HGAAS). Arsenic species, As III and As V , were determined in different parts of chilli fruits including seed, pericarb and placenta. This procedure leads to improve mild the extraction conditions using 0.1 g of ground sample in 10 mL of 1 M acid mixture of HCl : HNO 3 (3:1, v/v) and 1.5 mL H 2 O 2 for 15 min sonication. Analytical features of merit for both FI-HGAAS and flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS) measurements were obtained and compared. Actually, trace amounts of total As in these samples were found very lower than limit of quantitation of FAAS. Therefore, the ultra-trace amounts of As III , As V and total As in the chilli samples determined by FI-HGAAS were found in the ranges of 1.9-10.2 ng g -1 , 1.2-19.1 ng g -1 , 3.3-22.4 ng g -1 , respectively. Among three varieties of these chilli samples, higher contents of As were mostly found in seed of the fruits.The proposed method is, therefore, a novel one and can be implied for a routine work for arsenic in fruits and vegetables with its emerging applications.