Determination of selenium, zinc and cadmium in antidandruff shampoos by atomic spectrometry after microwave assisted sample digestion

Microwave assisted pre-treatments for atomic spectrometric determination (inductive coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry, ICP-OES or flame atomic absorption spectrometry, FAAS) of metallic elements, usually present in antidandruff shampoos, are proposed. They are based on the digestion of the sample with HNO(3) into a closed reactor, which is irradiated at 800 W for a few minutes. Selenium was determined by ICP-OES. The limit of detection was 0.11 mg l(-1); the relative standard deviation (R.S.D.) for the selenium content in the samples was in the 0.6-3.6% range. The results obtained were in agreement with the label contents and the recovery of the proposed method was in the 100-106…