Heavy metals such as lead, cadmium and nickel are toxic to
human, animal and environmental health. Copper is an essential
heavy metal at trace levels. If a man or animal consumes a high
amount of copper, their health may be negatively affected [1–
3]. Food and water are the main sources of our essential metals;
these are also the media through which we are exposed to various
toxic heavy metals [4]. Vegetables take up heavy metals and
accumulate them in their edible [5] and inedible parts in quantities
high enough to cause clinical problems both to animals and human
beings who consume these metal-rich plants [6,7]. Heavy metals
are found at mg L1 levels in water samples in general. Due to low
levels of heavy metals in water and environmental samples, it is
not possible to direct determination using an ICP-OES technique
[8,9]. A matrix effect of concomitant ions, alkaline, earth alkaline
and some transition metal ions can cause a negative or positive
effect to an analyte signal. In order to solve this problem and
increase the detection level of the instrument, various separation
and preconcentration procedures such as liquid extraction, solid