Rapid Determination of Toxic Elements in Finger Paints by Microwave Assisted Acid Digestion and Atomic Spectrometry Detection

ABSTRACT

A method for the rapid determination of toxic elements in finger paints based on the microwave sample digestion followed by the atomic spectrometric detection has been evaluated. The detection techniques used were Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectrometry (ICPAES) for Ba, Cd, Cr and Pb, Cold Vapour Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (CVAAS) for Hg and Hydride Generation Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (HGAAS) for As, Sb and Se. The results obtained indicated that the proposed method was suitable to determine toxic elements in finger paints at concentration levels below the maximum allowed by the European Standard EN 71 Safety of toys.

Keywords::

• Finger paints
• toxic elements
• microwave assisted digestion
• inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry
• hydride generation atomic absorption spectrometry
• cold vapour atomic absorption spectrometry.