The copper(II) ion interference in zinc determination by anodic shipping vo
ltammetry is removed by the addition of sulphide. The proposed method was f
ound to be applicable to a number of environmental samples. The calibration
graph was linear from 0.3 to 11 mu g of zinc. The recovery of zinc in thre
e real samples and two synthetic sea water samples spiked with 10 trace met
als using the proposed method ranged from 98% to 102%, and the precision of
the method was 1.6% (n=10) at the 1 mu g level of zinc. Most of the metal
ions and anions, except cobalt and nickel, found in the samples under inves
tigation were found not to interfere with the determination. The method is
simple, efficient and accurate, and has been used for the determination of
zinc in a number of natural water, domestic wastewater, air, oyster tissue,
sewage sludge and sediment samples. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rig
hts reserved.