Electroanalytical quantification of rhodium in lentils exposed to increasing Rh(III) concentrations

The quantification of trace/ultra-trace levels of rhodium in the environment and in food requires extremely sensitive analytical techniques. Catalytic Adsorptive Stripping Voltammetry (CAdSV) allows rhodium concentration to be determined at sub-mg/L levels in an easy and fast way. The best operational procedure was determined for the CAdSV quantification of rhodium in real food samples. In particular, adjusting the deposition times as a function of the rhodium concentration and using a weighted, linear, least-square regression substantially improved the quality of the results. The method was applied to the analysis of in-house contaminated lentils. The results confirmed that rhodium could enter the food chain at rather high concentration levels.