Automatic preparation of milk dessert slurries for the determination of trace amounts of aluminium by electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry

Abstract

A method for the direct determination of aluminium in milk desserts is proposed. The method uses a flow injection system connected semi-on-line to a graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometer through an autosampler for preparation of the slurries, addition of a chemical modifier and dilution–homogenization in a mixing chamber. Calibration is performed with aqueous standards. The flow system can be used to implement the standard additions method and investigate the effect of potential interferents in parallel by using two injection loops and the merging-zones mode. The slurries prepared contained up to 10% m/v. Aluminium was determined in various milk desserts at concentrations between 0.007 and 0.121 mg per 100 g.