[Determination of cadmium and mercury in tobacco leaves samples by CVAAS].
A new and sensitive method for the determination of cadmium and mercury was developed using nebulous phase reaction, cold vapor atomic absorption spectrometry (CVAAS). This design effectively reduces the loss of cadmium and volatile mercury species in aqueous solution and transfer process. The effects of several experimental parameters of the proposed system were optimized. Using the optimized experimental conditions, detection limits of 21 and 8 ng x L(-1) with RSD of 3.2% and 2.9% (n = 11) were obtained for cadmium and mercury, respectively. This method has been successfully applied to the determination of cadmium and mercury in tobacco leaves samples with the recoveries over 92%.