Determination of inorganic and total arsenic in wines by hydride generation atomic absorption spectrometry

A method is described for the determination of inorganic arsenic species and total arsenic in wines by means of hydride generation atomic absorption spectrometry (HGAAS). Simple ethanol evaporation is the only pretreatment procedure proposed for wine samples prior to direct measurement of inorganic arsenic (AsIII) and As( V) species by HGAAS. The total arsenic content is determined after microwave digestion of the wine samples. The optimal parameters for the microwave digestion procedure and the next HGAAS measurement of arsenic are established. The detection limits achieved are 0.1 mug L-1 for inorganic and total arsenic determination. The relative standard deviation for both procedures and for ten independent determinations varied between 8 and 15% for arsenic species in the range of 1 - 30 mug L-1. The accuracy of the procedure for total arsenic determination was proved by comparative analysis using electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry.