Abstract: A new method for the determination of lead, cadmium and mercury wi th high performance liquid chromatography was studied. The lead, cadmium and mercu ry was pre-column derived with tera-(4-methylphenyl)-porphine (T4MPP). The c haletes can be separated on a Waters XterraTM RP18 chromatographic column (5m, 3 .9×150, 5) with methanol (containing 0.01 mol/L prolidine-acetic acid bu ff er salt) and THF (containing 0.01 mol/L prolidine-acetic acid buffer salt) b ina ry mobile phase gardient elution as mobile phase, and monitored with photodi ode array detector. The linearity range of lead, cadmium and mercury are 0.01～ 3 mg/ L. The detection limits (S/N=3) are lead 2.3/L and m ercur y 2.5/L. The relative standard deviations are 2.1%～3.5%, and the rec overie s are 93%～106%. This method was applied to the determination of lead, cadmium and mercury in food with good results.

Key words: tera-(4-methylphenyl)-porphine, lead, cadmium, mercury, high per fo rmance liquid chromatography