Abstract: A method was proposed to analyze the quantity of the lead and chromium in acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene copolymer (ABS) using microwave digestion and atomic absorption spectrum. The pretreatment was optimized including temperature, digestion procedure and proportion of acids, in order to digest the materials completely. It was found that the detection limits for Pb and Cr were 0.03 and 0.02 mg/kg, respectively. The relative standard deviations for Pb and Cr were all less than 7 % and the recovery was between 93 % and 103 %.

Key words: microwave digestion, atomic absorption spectrum, acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene copolymer, heavy metal element