Arsenic (As) is found in the environment and its concentrations are increasing from natural sources and anthropogenic activities like mining, smelting, and past farming with arsenic-containing pesticides. This can cause the element to accumulate in food and beverage products. Arsenic has negative health affects and poses exposure risks to humans when contaminated food products are ingested, because the predominant arsenic exposure pathway for humans is through dietary intake. Research on food and beverage products is therefore essential to understand arsenic’s role in human health. Few studies have addressed total arsenic content in wine. This poster describes the optimization of a method to determine the total As concentration in wines using an Agilent 4200 microwave plasma-atomic emission spectrometer (MP-AES). Arsenic concentration was determined via hydride generation (HG) using the Multimode Sample Introduction System (MSIS), which provides lower detection limits than conventional liquid introduction. Wine samples were collected with varying ethanol concentrations and wine styles such as red, white, rosé, sparkling, and fortified wines. The developed method provides a cost-effective approach for arsenic and elemental profiling that can be used for all wine types and alcohol concentrations.

Funding Support: University of California, Davis, Agilent Technologies