Study on Content Determination of Lead and Arsenic in Four Traditional Tibetan Medicine Prescription Preparations by Wet Digestion Flow Injection-Hydride Generation-Atomic Absorption Spectrometry

Four common traditional tibetan medicine prescription preparations "Anzhijinghuasan, Dangzuo, Renqingchangjue and Rannasangpei" in tibetan areas were selected as study objects in the present study. The purpose was to try to establish a kind of wet digestion and flow injection-hydride generation-atomic absorption spectrometry (FI-HAAS) associated analysis method for the content determinations of lead and arsenic in traditional tibetan medicine under optimized digestion and measurement conditions and determine their contents accurately. Under these optimum operating conditions, experimental results were as follows. The detection limits for lead and arsenic were 0.067 and 0.012 mu g . mL(-1) respectively. The quantification limits for lead and arsenic were 0.22 and 0.041 mu g . mL(-1) respectively. The linear ranges for lead and arsenic were 25 similar to 1 600 ng . mL(-1) (r=0.999 5) and 12. 5 similar to 800 ng . mL(-1)(r=0. 999 4) respectively. The degrees of precision(RSD) for lead and arsenic were 2. 0% and 3. 2% respectively. The recovery rates for lead and arsenic were 98. 00%similar to 99. 98% and 96. 67%similar to 99. 87% respectively. The content determination results of lead and arsenic in four traditional tibetan medicine prescription preparations were as follows. The contents of lead and arsenic in Anzhijinghuasan are 0.63 similar to 0.67 mu g . g(-1) and 0. 32 similar to 0. 33 mu g . g(-1) in Anzhijinghuasan, 42. 92 similar to 43. 36 mu g . g(-1) and 24. 67 similar to 25. 87 mu g . g(-1) in Dangzuo, 1 611. 39 similar to 1 631. 36 mu g . g(-1) and 926. 76 similar to 956. 52 mu g . g(-1) in Renqing Changjue, and 1 102. 28 similar to 1 119. 27 mu g . g(-1) and 509. 96 similar to 516. 87 mu g . g(-1) in Rannasangpei, respectively. This study established a method for content determination of lead and arsenic in traditional tibetan medicine, and determined the content levels of lead and arsenic in four tibetan medicine prescription preparations accurately. In addition, these results also provide the basis for the safe and effective use of those medicines in clinic.