Abstract

Background: This study describes a simple and rapid analytical method for the simultaneous determination of trace amounts of copper(II), zinc(II), nickel(II), cobalt(II), iron(II), cadmium(II) and mercury(II) in fish samples by the reversed-phase highperformance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) with di-2-pyridyl ketone benzoylhydrazone (DPKBH) as pre-column derivatization reagent.

Methods: Seven metal chelates were successfully separated with methanol:acetonitrile:tetrabutyl ammonium bromide (1.0 mM):water mixture containing ammonium acetate buffer (pH 6.0) and DPKBH (1.0 mM) (40:24:1:30:5, v/v/v/v/v) as mobile phase on a C18 column at a flow rate 1.0 mL min-1 at 370 nm.

Results: Under the optimum conditions, reproducibilities of analyte retention times (relative standard deviation (RSD) ≤ 0.04%) and peak areas (RSD ≤ 1.5%) were found to be good with the lineraties R2 ≥ 0.9995. The validation of the method was performed by the analysis of certified reference materials.

Conclusion: The method developed was applied for the determination of Cu(II), Zn(II), Ni(II), Co(II), Fe(II), Cd(II) and Hg(II) in fish samples.

Keywords: Chelating reagent, di-2-pyridyl ketone benzoylhydrazone, trace element, RP-HPLC, fish samples, derivatization reagent.

Graphical Abstract