Bioaccumulating plants: Monitoring of heavy metals in leaves and roots of wheat and sunflower using a fast and indirect detection by open-tubular capillary electrochromatography.

PATRICIA W. STEGE; GISELA FORLIN; JOSÉ A. GASQUEZ; LORENA L. SOMBRA

San Luis

Congreso; XXX congreso anual de la sociedad de biología de cuyo; 2012

Human activity such as industrial development, urbanization andintensive agriculture, has led to extensive environmental problems.Since heavy metals are mobile and easily absorbed by plants in theenvironment, they are transmitted to the human body through nourishment.Metal-accumulating plants, such Triticum species andHelianthus annuus L., can accumulate high concentrations of heavymetals in both leaves and roots from polluted soil and waters. Forthe determination of these elements we used CZE with indirectdetection. This technique require the dissolution of the sample, withthis aim three digestion procedures were applied. The best resultswere obtained in batch using a mixture of HNO3+HCl. The detectionwas performed at 214 nm; the voltage was set at 25 kV. Sampleswere pressure-injected at the cathodic side at 0.5 psi for 10 seconds.The background electrolyte (BGE) used consisted of 6 mMimidazole, pH 4.0 adjusted with 1 M acetic acid. The proposedmethod allows the rapid determination of heavy metals in naturalproducts. It was recently demonstrated that MW-assisted acid treatmentwith H2O2 could be used satisfactorily for sample clean-uptechnique prior to CE determination of various metals species. Thismethods have a great potential to be applied in phytoremediationin which the use of green plants help to remove contaminants fromsoil and groundwater.