Background and Objective: In recent decades, the issue of crop product safety has led to develop methods for analyzing pollutants in crops. In the present study, ultra-trace amounts of lead (II) ions were measured in lettuce and water samples collected from Shahmirzad, located in Semnan province, an area known for its lead-containing mineral mines.
Materials and Methods: After sampling and pre-preparation, the lead content in each sample was extracted using solid phase extraction with modified silica gel. The recovery percentage of lead was then determined using atomic absorption spectroscopy.
Results: Optimization of key parameters such as pH, adsorbent amount, analyte flow rate, and volume resulted in a recovery rate of 104%. The experiments also demonstrated a very low limit of detection (LOD) of 1.14 ng/mL, a concentration factor of 250, high analyte selectivity of the adsorbent in the presence of interfering ions, and a high adsorbent capacity of 2.93 μg/g.
Conclusion: The evaluation of experimental data indicates that the current study provides a highly selective method that can be applied to the extraction and recovery of various analytes from different sample types.
