Simultaneous determination of copper and zinc in the hair of children by pH gradient construction in a flow-injection system

Abstract

A flow-injection method is described for the simultaneous determination of copper and zinc with a single detector using the pH gradient technique. Zincon is used as the colour reagent for the spectrophotometric determination. The linear range for the determination of zinc is 0.4–12 µg ml^–1 and for copper is 0.1–3.0 µg ml^–1. About 20–30 samples can be determined in one hour. The proposed method has been applied to the determination of zinc and copper in childrens' hair.