High-resolution continuum source atomic absorption spectrometry on the determination of Cu, Fe, Mn and Zn in medicinal plants

Abstract

The National Regulations for Medicinal Plants and Phytotherapy (Decree # 5813 from June 22, 2006) and National Regulations for Integrated and Complementary Practices in the SUS help the access to medicinal plants by Brazilians. The availability of accurate technologies, the knowledge of inorganic composition and an efficient quality control program for medicinal plants largely consumed are relevant. A method development to determine Cu, Fe, Mn and Zn in medicinal plants by high-resolution continuum source atomic absorption spectrometry is proposed. As the iron concentration in such samples are commonly higher than those for Cu, Mn and Zn, some instrumental strategy will be studied to allow the fast-sequential multi-element determination in a single extract without the need of further dilutions. So, the main analytical figures of merit for main, secondary and alternate lines, and measurements based on wavelength integrated absorbance and side pixel registration will be evaluated. Standard reference materials and addition/recovery tests should be employed to evaluate the performance of the proposed method, as well the selectivity, recovery, precision, accuracy, linearity and sensibility of calibration curves and detection limits.