Effect of the use of copper compounds on plants for the control of bacterial diseases

Copper is an essential plant micronutrient involved in many essential functions in any living organism, included plants. However, it is highly toxic above optimal concentrations. Therefore copper pollution has to be accurately monitored, and currently the speciation of a metal represents a more suitable approach to investigate metals ecotoxicity. Here, using several economically important plants, the quantitation and speciation of copper was performed, after treatments with copper solutions at various concentrations. The total content of copper and other elements was evaluated, after microwave digestion of the vegetable samples followed by flow injection – inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (FI-ICPMS) analysis. Then a hyphenated method was also developed for the quantitation and speciation of copper in plant samples by coupling of size-exclusion chromatography (SEC) with ICP-MS.