Study on Determination of Seven Transition Metal Ions in Water and Food by Microcolumn High-Performance Liquid Chromatography

A new method for the simultaneous determination of seven transition metal ions in water and food by microcolumn high-performance liquid chromatography has been developed. The lead, cadmium, mercury, nickel, cobalt, silver and tin ions were pre-column derivatized with tetra-(4-aminophenyl)-porphyrin ($T_4$-APP) to form the colored chelates which were then enriched by solid phase extraction with $C_{18}$ cartridge. The enrichment factor of 50 was achieved by eluted the retained chelates from the cartridge with tetrahydrofuran (THF). The chelates were separated on a ZORBAX Stable Bound microcolumn ($2.0{\times}50\;mm,\;1.8\;{\mu}m$)with methanol-tetrahydrofuran (95 : 5, v/v, containing 0.05 mol/L pyrrolidine-acetic acid buffer salt, pH = 10.0) as mobile phase at a flow rate of 0.5 mL/min and detected with a photodiode array detector from 350-600 nm. The seven chelates were separated completely within 2.0 min. The detection limits of lead, cadmium, mercury, nickel, cobalt, silver and tin are 4 ng/L, 3 ng/L, 6 ng/L, 5 ng/L, 5 ng/L, 6 ng/L, 4 ng/L respectively in the original samples. This method was applied to the determination of the seven transition metal in water and food samples with good results.